The Letter and more
by magista
Summary: COMPLETE! S7 AU. Buffy, Spike, Dawn and others have to deal with rebuilding relationships now that Spike has returned - with a soul, and other surprises.
1. The Letter

I can't claim any credit for this idea; I was inspired by the letter Miles wrote to Ekaterin in Lois McMaster Bujold's masterful novel "A Civil Campaign". If you've never read any of her _ Adventures of Miles Vorkosigan_, get thee to a bookstore or library at once! 

I thought the concept applied so well to the situation on Buffy after the events of the episode "Seeing Red" that I couldn't get it out of my head. Here, then, is my version of what Spike might write to Buffy before leaving for Africa.   
----------------------- 

**The Letter**   
magista 

The heavy cream envelope stood out amongst the junk mail, fliers and bills like a rose among common garden weeds. 

_Buffy Anne Summers_ it read on the front in an elegant script. _ This didn't come through the mail_, she thought, turning it over and taking in the lack of any other markings. On the back, the envelope was sealed with a dollop of burgundy wax, pressed into an intricate seal. She slipped her thumb under the flap and the wax cracked easily, allowing her to open the envelope. The heavy paper sliced her skin, and a few drops of blood stained its pristine folds. Buffy absently slipped her injured thumb between her lips as she sat down at the kitchen table to examine this unusual missive, drawing out the letter within and flattening the thick paper with her other hand. 

_ My dearest Buffy_, the letter began. _ I am sorry. _

Her heart skipped a beat, then picked up again in quicker rhythm. She turned the paper about, looking for anything to confirm the source. There were no clues, but she already knew. Her eyes were drawn back to the simple, graceful handwriting, clearly not made with a drugstore Bic. 

_ My dearest Buffy. I am sorry. _

No matter how many times I have rewritten this letter to you, how many ways I have tried to say what I feel, it always begins with those words. 

I was wrong. I tried to take from you by force something which cannot even be asked for, but must be freely given - your love. Nothing I will say will undo what I have done, and for my shameful actions I can only offer my deepest and most humble apology. 

Knowing you has been, at the same time, the most terrible and wonderful experience of my existence. I have undergone many changes as the result of knowing you, not all of them willingly. I have learned friendship and I have learned love. But you were right to say you cannot love me, for I have not learned these things well enough yet to deserve them in return. 

I love you. If I were to quote a poet greater by far than myself, I would say "I love you to the very depth and breadth and height my soul can reach". And there is the crux of the matter indeed. Though my love for you consumes me, it will always lack the essential essence of humanity. 

Years ago I willingly surrendered my soul to become a monster, in search of something I thought would make me better than what I was. Now I see how foolish a choice that was. Yet I find cannot regret it, because without that decision I would never have met you. You returned some of my soul to me, when you treated me like a man, but I am not one. A true man, an honourable man, does not harm those whom he loves; nor does he force anything on a woman against her will. 

Perhaps once I had the potential to be such a man. Until such time as I believe have that potential again, I am not fit for the company of humans. And so I am leaving that I may attempt to complete this transformation and become what I believe I can be. 

Whatever the outcome, forever I will remain   
Your devoted William 

  
The letter blurred before her eyes, and a single teardrop smeared his name. 

Buffy drew a shaking breath and steadied herself. _ He didn't even ask me to forgive him. Does he think that I won't be able to, or that he doesn't deserve to be forgiven? _

I know you didn't mean to hurt me. I know you only wanted me to want you again - but you did hurt me all the same. The bruises - those were gone in a day. The emotional pain . . . will take longer. 

She folded the letter again, slipped it back into the envelope, and then leaned forward on the table, wrapping her arms about herself. 

_ I hope you find what you're looking for. _


	2. The Coat

I had always intended "The Letter" to be a standalone piece. You know, just a short short reaction piece on the events of "Seeing Red". Then I was hanging out in the Bronze (www.buffy.com/bronze_linear.jsp) and all my friends were talking about "the coat". Spike's duster that he left behind served as the seed for another story. Here's some short speculation about how the some events of the summer might have gone. 

**The Coat**

For a while at the beginning of the summer, the only time she had felt whole or at peace was when she was on patrol - hunting, as Dracula had once called it. She would work at the DoubleMeat to closing until her mind was numb, and then spend hours scouring the graveyards, sometimes not returning home until nearly dawn. Then she would spend the majority of the day in less than restful sleep, only to rise and repeat the cycle again, distancing herself from everyone. Time slipped by in an exhausted haze. 

After Tara's death, it had seemed for a while as though none of them would ever recover. Bonds that had existed between them for years were ripped apart in an instant when Willow had succumbed again to the seductive draw of black magics. But when Xander had faced down Willow with his love for her, they began a long, slow climb out of the darkness again at last. And yet there were days when nothing seemed right, when it was hard to remember that it had once been so much worse. 

One night, while searching in her closet to replace a shirt torn by a vampire that had gotten just a bit too close, she found it. The coat. _His_ coat. Xander had brandished it at her angrily as she sat in shock on the cold tile of the bathroom floor, clutching her robe about herself to hide the bruises. She'd spent the rest of that day like an automaton, barely reacting to events around her. She must have hung it up in just another unconscious response. 

The weight of it startled her as it slipped from its hanger, and she clutched at it more tightly, drawing it against herself. Its heavy, slick folds spun about her, surrounding her with the mingled scents of smoke, stale alcohol and unidentifiable cologne. The worn leather creaked as she tightened her fingers in the collar and held it close, inhaling deeply. Memories of his face flooded her mind. She'd seen every possible emotion on his face in the time she'd known him: superior sneers, boyish grins, anguish, panic, helpless love, jealousy, surprise, adoration, lust, rapture . . . and finally shame. 

Without stopping to let herself think why she was doing it, she laid the coat on her bed. Slipping under the covers, she pulled it against herself, nestling deeply into the smoky folds. No dreams disturbed her sleep and she awoke feeling more rested than she had in weeks. 

The next night she folded it into her backpack, along with a change of clothes for patrolling after work. She felt only a moment's hesitation before she slipped the heavy coat onto her shoulders. The sleeves had to be turned up, twice, and the hem brushed at her ankles, but it felt right - it felt like coming home. When she wrapped her arms around herself, she could imagine his embrace on one of the rare occasions they had found time for tenderness. She smiled involuntarily; hearing in her mind the sound of his voice raised in delighted profanity as their bodies laid claim to one another yet again. 

Perhaps it was only her imagination, but that night the demons and vampires seemed more fearful, less able to fight back. Every move she made seemed to flow smoothly in step like the proverbial well-oiled machine going through its motions. And for the first time in weeks, she fell into bed delighting in, rather than overcome by her exhaustion. 

Her sister and her friends began to comment on her improved mood and how she'd finally managed to put things behind her. Her heart grew lighter, her burdens easier, until an observer, not knowing her dark history, might consider her once again one of the blessed children of southern California, sun-kissed and without cares. 

She only took out the coat on those nights she knew she would be alone. The others simply wouldn't understand. 


	3. The Man

Okay, so now we've (mostly) all seen "Grave", and we know that Spike has had his soul returned to him, because he wanted to "give Buffy what she deserves". I'd like to assume that this is really what he wanted all along (of course, I have been known as a longterm resident of the first class cabin "Hope" on the cruiser "Denile", too - consider this just a warning that what you're about to read is complete and utter speculation on my part regarding Season 7). But his words were more like "make me what I was" - and he never was a vampire with a soul. He was a man.   
------------------- 

  
**The Man**

He hadn't intended to let himself be seen. It was his own curiosity that doomed him - he knew that she would be out patrolling and had found himself a vantage point where he thought to remain undiscovered. He'd been watching her for a week already and was sure he knew the pattern of her movements through the cemeteries. 

He didn't know what to make of the fact that she was wearing his coat, the one he'd left behind in his haste to get away that awful day. Though it was clearly too large for her, it didn't seem to impede her movements at all. She was as beautiful and as dangerous as ever, and it both soothed and savaged his heart to see her again. 

After she had passed by, he climbed down from the roof of the crypt from where he had been watching and set out again for home. Clem was still staying with him, though he would have preferred solitude, and he had sworn his friend to secrecy on the topic of his return. He knew that Dawn had taken a liking to stopping in to visit, and wasn't ready to see her again yet either, so he hid when she came by. 

He was completely taken by surprise when he came upon the Slayer in the space between two mausoleums. She whirled with deadly grace to strike, stopping herself only fractions of an inch from his flesh when she realized his identity. _You'd get a most unpleasant surprise if you hadn't_, he thought. 

"Spike!" she exclaimed, her mouth agape. "_You're_ the one who's been following me around all week? When did you get back?" 

"It's been a few weeks now," he admitted, and her face fell. "I said I was sorry." Her presence near him licked at him like fire, and his newly won conscience twinged at the memory of what he had nearly done to her. 

"Yes, you did," she said shortly, meaning that the apology really wasn't the issue any more. Silence awkwardly filled the space between them. 

Having become accustomed to long silences with only himself for company, he waited her out. Buffy broke the stillness first. 

"Did you . . . find what you wanted . . . what you left for?" she ventured at last. 

_And how do I answer that question?_ he wondered. _Do I tell you that I can't sleep for the pounding of my heart in my ears - a sound that I haven't heard for more than a century? That even just talking to you now has it hammering in my chest? I'm surprised you can't hear it yourself. I love you more than I would have thought possible before, but I can hardly stomach remembering all the things I've done to you. And now, having unwittingly transformed myself into someone you might not find it impossible to love, I don't know if I could even bear the strength of your embrace any longer. I'm stronger than any normal man, but I still don't know exactly_ what _I am. _

All this and more burned wildfire through his mind in the space it took him to blink twice and look away. "I . . . I don't want to talk about it," was all he managed. 

"Is that all you have to say?" she asked angrily. "After four months? I - Dawn was worried sick about you." 

He spread his arms apologetically wide; da Vinci's _Infinite Man_ rendered in flesh and blood. "_Ecce homo_," he said, knowing full well she wouldn't understand. _Behold the man. _

He whirled abruptly and left for home and the comfort of solitude, grateful when he heard no pursuit. 


	4. The Truth

I have to thank all of you for your enthusiastic response to this little flight of fancy of mine. The last time I checked, "The Letter (and more)" had nearly as many reviews as my "Fragments of a Dream" - which is about 20 times longer. I've obviously struck a nerve. 

Okaaaaaay. This is what happens when I finally get to go out and read other people's work. I knew there were some things that bothered me about Willow and Spike's characterizations in season 6. Then I went to http://www.btvs-tabularasa.net/episodes/reviews/barb.htm, where I read Barb Cummings's most insightful summary of the season. She put into eloquent words _exactly_ what was bugging me. That's when this section took root. 

You might know her better as Barb C., the author of such amazing pieces as "A Raising in the Sun" or "Necessary Evils" here at fanfiction. If you haven't read her work yet, you're surely in for a treat. I can't even be envious, because she's as far beyond me as I am beyond those who can't identify a dangling participle. :-) 

Maybe it's too much to ask for Dawn to say all the things I have her saying here. Maybe no real 16-year-old would be able to. On the other hand, no average teenager would have been through what she has, either. In any case, these things wanted saying. Tara's gone and Spike's out of touch, so there was no one else. 

Be gentle.   
----------------- 

  
**The Truth (in two days)**

Dawn took her cereal bowl and plopped herself down at the kitchen table next to Buffy. "It's nice having you all to myself," she said. 

"Enjoy it while you can. Willow will be back from the magic abuse intervention group in about two weeks," her sister replied. Dawn made a rude noise. 

"Hey, have a little sympathy for other people's problems," Buffy said, surprised at Dawn's lack of understanding. 

"I would, if I thought they were actually treating the right problem," she replied. 

"What do you mean?" 

"Just take a look at Willow's history," Dawn explained. "Oz left, so she tries a spell to make herself get over him right away. You died, her magic brings you back. Tara argues with her, thinking she's using too much magic, she tries to make Tara forget - eventually leading to a whole _barrel_ of fun for the rest of us, _Joan_. And when Tara died, she was ready to destroy the world to stop the pain she felt. And now you and everyone else are saying 'the magic made her do it'? That's bullshit." 

"Dawn!" Buffy cried, horrified at her cynical attitude, and yet riveted by the younger girl's view of recent events. 

Dawn didn't let Buffy's outburst stop her. This was something she'd wanted to get off her chest for a long time. "Willow's problem is that she wants instant gratification, instant solutions to all her problems. I know what that's like. I chose shoplifting. Willow chose magic. She's never learned that some things take time to get better - the way you only learned gradually last year that being alive was something you could accept again - and she absolutely refuses to understand that sometimes nothing you do will help." 

"Where do you get these ideas?" Buffy asked. 

"Geez, Buffy," Dawn rolled her eyes. "Didn't you ever listen in your 'Health and Life Management' classes in high school?" 

"Are those the ones where they make you carry an egg around to see what it would be like to be a parent? 'Cause - not good memories there." 

"There's a lot more to it than that. I'm guessing you ditched a lot of those classes for Slaying duties?" Buffy nodded. "Figures. 

"I've had a lot of help from the therapist from Social Services, too," Dawn added. "You know, figuring out what to do when your family's more _dis_ than _functional_? We sure qualify. I think I might like to be a psychologist when I grow up. Or maybe a vet. I haven't decided yet." 

********** 

"Spike's back," Buffy said, out of the blue, to Dawn at breakfast the next day. 

"What? When?" she blurted. 

"He's been following me around on patrol for about a week, but I only found out it was him last night." Buffy took a bite of her toast and washed it down with some coffee before continuing. "He said he's been back for almost a month, though. I don't know why he didn't tell me - tell _us_ - sooner." 

"Maybe because he didn't think you'd be glad to see him," Dawn observed. "You two weren't exactly on the best of terms last spring. And speaking of which - what happened between you two back then? What made him run off that way? I never understood that." 

Buffy sat back in her chair and assessed her sister thoughtfully. Since she had stopped trying to protect Dawn from every little thing, she had found that her sister had a remarkable resilience in dealing with events that would have driven Buffy herself around the bend at the same age. Even the succession of - was _two_ a succession? - of vampire lovers. She thought that Dawn would probably deal equally well with knowing the truth about Spike. 

"He . . . tried to rape me," she admitted. Dawn's eyes went wide, and she froze in mid-mouthful. Buffy continued quickly, afraid that she might choke. "I know now that he was desperate to get me to love him, and since we'd always . . . played kind of rough . . ." Her voice trailed off. She wasn't doing a very good job of this, she thought, her cheeks turning pink with embarrassment. 

"You stopped him," Dawn said, after swallowing her now soggy mouthful. It wasn't really a question. 

"Yes. I don't think that he understood what he was doing, but he still hurt me. Not even so much physically, just some bruises - but emotionally I was a wreck about it for some time." 

Dawn was quiet for so long that Buffy was afraid she had said too much, that Dawn was still too young to have to face this kind of information. 

"That . . . bastard," Dawn said at last, under her breath. 

"Spike?" 

"No. Xander," she said, to Buffy's utter surprise. "He was all hinting around about how something had happened, and then he accused me of having the same blind spot about Spike that you had." She looked up frankly at her sister. "Don't misunderstand - I think Spike deserves a swift kick or worse for what he did - but Xander was deliberately trying to turn me against him, against someone I consider a friend." 

Dawn stood and took her bowl to the sink, rinsing it out and leaving it in the dish rack to dry. "I _like_ Spike. I always have," she said, turning back to face her sister. "I guess I have to admit that the chip isn't really the same thing as a soul, if he could still do that to you, but we've known plenty of evil vampires - and Spike just _isn't_ anymore, for whatever reason. He cares about me. He _loves_ you. You know that." 

"I know," she acknowledged quietly. "At least, he did. He wouldn't talk to me last night." 

"And all of this is what made him leave?" Dawn asked, still somewhat unsure about the sequence of events. 

Buffy rose and went to the writing desk in the corner. Pulling open a drawer, she rummaged briefly and returned with a much worn and folded piece of heavy paper, which she placed in front of Dawn. "Read this. You'll understand." 

Dawn unfolded Spike's letter and read it through, several times. She didn't think Buffy wanted to hear that she could tell from the worn creases the letter had been read hundreds of times before. Some things Buffy really had to figure out for herself. 

She refolded the paper and smoothed it between her hands and the table. "He must have felt awful," she said in sympathy for the pain he had revealed in the letter, unconsciously brushing a tear from the corner of her eye. "And you still don't believe that Spike has something Angel didn't?" 

"Angel has a soul. Spike doesn't. _That's_ the difference between them," Buffy insisted. 

Okay, maybe she wasn't going to figure _this_ out by herself either. "Buffy, stop and think for a minute. You're saying that Spike left town because he was so upset over what he had tried to do. That he felt guilty." 

"That's right. So?" 

"Since when do evil, soulless vampires feel bad about hurting someone?" Buffy closed her eyes. She had no reply to that. 

"You know what really has you spooked?" Dawn went on. "If Spike can love you and care about us _without a soul_, then what was wrong with Angel? How come he couldn't love you enough? You'd have to admit that Angel wasn't as much of a Prince Charming as you remember - and that would just tear you up inside." 

"You can't blame Angel for what Angelus did. He didn't have a choice," Buffy said hotly. 

"You really don't see it, do you?" Dawn asked, surprised that Buffy didn't understand. 

She was genuinely mystified by Dawn's question. "See what?" 

"The hole in your argument big enough to drive a stolen RV through, dummy. If you're right about Angel and Angelus being different people, then Spike doesn't have a choice about how he behaves either. But he still made one. He left because he knew what he did was wrong - even if he only figured it out because of the way you reacted - and he's trying to make it better. 

"And even worse - you have to admit that just going to Spike and using him to make you feel something again was wrong. _You_ were wrong. Because he's shown that he's more than just some thing there for your convenience." 

Against her will, Buffy found herself remembering when Warren had killed Katrina and made her think she had done it. Spike had tried to keep her from turning herself in, and her response had been to beat him bloody and nearly senseless in an alley, while accusing him of being nothing more than an evil, soulless thing because he couldn't understand her guilt. Buffy was silent for a long time. "I did that to him. I did . . . Oh god." 

She leaned her face in her hands. He _couldn't_ feel her guilt; he wasn't wired that way - but he had wanted to understand her pain, and she hadn't even granted him even an _attempt_ at an explanation, hadn't thought him capable of understanding. Whole swaths of the past year unfolded again before her eyes in this new light, and what she saw of herself made her cringe. A couple of weeks later, she was ready to sleep with him again because Riley had turned up and made her feel like a failure - and she knew Spike would never turn her down. He had never said a word about how she had hurt him. And more than a year ago, before they had faced Glory together, he had thanked her for treating him like a man. Silent, shamed tears began to spill from her eyes. 

Dawn cleared Buffy's dishes from the table, since it didn't seem as though her sister was interested in any more breakfast. She was going to be late for school, but she figured she could afford to blow off at least one of her morning classes now that her attendance and marks had improved. Buffy really needed someone to be with her today. 

After about ten minutes, Buffy raised her swollen eyes and saw Dawn sitting quietly across from her, doodling in friendly silence on the telephone pad. "Was that more wisdom from your health classes?" she asked at last, reaching for a tissue to repair some of the damage. 

"No, from the AP Psychology course I took by correspondence over the summer, remember? When I was desperate to make up some of the credits I lost skipping last year?" She smiled. "You _should_ remember; you complained enough about the cost at the time." 

"I have to go to him. I have to . . . apologize, at least." 

"Do you think you two will get back together?" 

"It can't be about that. If you're right - and I think you are - then I have to apologize simply because it's the right thing to do. Otherwise I'm no better than what I've always accused him of being. I'm supposed to be the one with the soul. After that . . . I don't know what will happen." 

********** 

The pounding at the door echoed through the dark, candlelit crypt until Clem pulled it open. "Why Slayer! What a pleasant surprise. What can I do for you?" His wrinkled, homely face developed even more lines as he pulled it into an earnest welcoming smile. 

"You can tell me where Spike is," she said. "I need to talk to him." 

"Spike? He left. I haven't seen him since the spring," he began, offering his cover story again as he had to Dawn many times over the summer. 

"It's all right, Clem." Spike emerged from the shadows. "She saw me last night. Hello, Slayer," he said, bringing a cigarette to his lips and lighting it nonchalantly. 

"Spike-" Buffy just looked at him, then over at Clem standing by the door, then back at him again. 

He could take a hint. "Clem, isn't there something you should be doing right about now?" he asked his friend. 

"No, I don't remember any - oh, right. That thing." He turned for the door. "So sorry to greet and run, Slayer, but there's this really important . . . thing . . . that I have to go do." In a moment he was through the door and gone. 

Buffy waited only until the door closed behind him. "Spike," she said, trying hard to keep her voice steady. "We have to talk." 


	5. The Talk

Well you know... the course of true love never did run smooth...   
------------------   


**The Talk**

"Spike, we have to talk." 

He drank in the sight of her, water in the desert of his solitude. _Beat me up, tie me down, use me and abuse me, savage my body and my heart - just as long as you never leave me. _ He forcibly restrained his heart's wild flight. A veteran of decades of games of chance - kitten poker and others much more deadly - he knew his face betrayed no sign of his turmoil. _ You may have gone all poofter-sensitive, but you've still got some pride, mate - bags of it, in fact. And she doesn't need someone to cosset her at every turn, much as you'd like to. _

Spike leaned back onto the lid of one of the sarcophagi and drew his legs up under him to sit comfortably cross-legged there. "So? Talk." He drew deeply on his cigarette and exhaled a careless stream of smoke while he waited for her to speak. 

Buffy was taken aback by his casual demeanor. She'd expected - well to be honest, she'd expected him to begin pleading his case to sleep with him again almost immediately. The dichotomy with actual events left her off balance and she began defensively. "What you tried to do to me was wrong." 

Shame burned. _Of course it was, love. Utterly and horribly wrong. I knew that even_ before _I left here. _ "I'm sorry, love." _You can't possibly know how sorry. _ "But I can't undo what I did, only try to make up for it in future. If you'll give me the chance." 

Dawn was right. This in itself was a revelation fit to make her head spin. _If he feels real remorse, then his love... How much more is there to Spike that I never bothered to notice when I had him neatly classified as evil-soulless-thing? _ "I believe you... William. And I'm not really here about you, but rather for me." 

_Deep breath, now. I'm not used to playing the villain of the piece. _ "I'm sorry too. I was wrong. The way I treated you last year, it was-" She paused, uncertain how to continue. 

Much as he still loved her, Spike felt the need to get some of his own back - even if it hurt. "You treated me like dirt, Slayer." 

Interesting thing about a soul: it in no way diminished his ability to tell unpleasant truths, it just sometimes made him feel sorry about it afterwards. In that sense, it was a much less effective discipline than the chip, which at least had offered instant correction that stopped the undesirable behavior before it started. It hadn't, in fact, turned him back into nancy-boy William again at all. More than a century of evil - and he would atone, he couldn't help himself on that score - had left its mark. He was far harder and more world-wary than the effeminate ponce he had once been. 

Buffy recoiled, stung by the harshness in his tone. _I probably deserved that. _ She cleared her throat. "Um. Mind if I--?" She gestured at the other stone tomb. 

"Suit yourself," he replied, and she sat gingerly on the rough stone, fidgeting to find a comfortable position. 

"You... were the only one who wasn't demanding something from me when I was brought back. Because of that, you were the only one that I could stand to be around. And then when we..." she stopped again. 

"Shagged? Screwed?" Spike offered helpfully, if somewhat maliciously. 

"The first time we made love," Buffy continued firmly, "was the first time I really felt alive again. But suddenly nothing was black and white for me anymore. You were supposed to represent everything I should be opposed to - so how could you make me feel so good?" She looked away, suddenly unwilling or unable to meet his eyes. "I didn't need any more ambiguity in my life, so I tried hard to believe that you weren't any good and were just something I did for myself, something-" 

"Something convenient. I remember." 

"I'm sorry," she said again. "It's an explanation, not an excuse." 

"Didn't stop you from coming back to make me your personal sex toy," he retorted hotly. "Any time you felt an itch." 

Buffy blushed and cast her eyes down to where her fingers twisted together in her lap. "I know. You cared about me - you loved me - and all I could think about was how mortified I would be if any of my friends found out." 

"Obviously I was never on the list of 'friends of Buffy'," he replied hollowly, all anger drained from his voice. 

"No," she acknowledged softly. "And you should have been. You've done at least as much for Dawn and me as any of my friends have. I said I wouldn't forget - but I did." 

More than a year ago, he had been sitting where she was now, battered and bleeding. He had thought she was the Buffybot returned to him - until she kissed him. The hope that had begun to burn in him at that tenderness had been almost more painful than his wounds. And her death so soon after had nearly destroyed him. 

Harris had been right. Getting her back was the single most joyful moment of his existence, made all the more poignant when the rest of the year had gone straight to hell. 

Buffy watched the memories and emotions play over his expressive face in the shadows. _So much pain. How much of it is my fault? _ "I do... care about you, William." 

"Yeh? You got a funny way of showing it," he replied, angry again as the events of the past year flooded his mind again. "Trying to pound my head through the pavement." 

"You were the one who tried to make me believe I came back wrong so that I would be with you," she snapped defensively. "Then Tara told me I hadn't really changed, and I knew it couldn't go on. Don't you see? If I believed there was something wrong with me, it was so much easier than the alternative - that you, with no soul, could love me-" Her eyes were haunted. 

"Ah, here it comes." He flung down his cigarette furiously in a shower of sparks and lunged to his feet to pace about the crypt. "Always has to come back to him, doesn't it? Let me be perfectly clear - Angelus never gave a damn about anything but Angelus. Not me, not Dru, and not even you. That you can sit there and still try to tell me that Angel and Angelus are two different people - that he wasn't responsible for the things he did when he lost his soul - and then in the same breath you blame me for not living up to your standards-" He returned to the tomb opposite her and leaned over it, planting both hands deliberately on the cold stone. "I'll take a lot from you, Slayer. You know that. But even I have my limits." 

He abruptly pounded both fists together on the lid of the sarcophagus until the stone cracked and his hands were raw and bloody, and she drew back, startled. "I love you, and I would never leave you - but if he so much as raised a soulful brow in your direction, you'd be off without a backward glance, wouldn't you?" 

"I'm sorry," she said yet again. "About everything I've done. I care about you... and I do have feelings for you. But I can't - I don't love you." 

"Why were you wearing my coat?" he asked, apropos of nothing, then shook his head wearily, not waiting for an answer. "Go home." He turned away. 

She was taken by surprise. "What?" 

"You heard me. Go. Home." 

"But I-" 

"I accept your apology, Slayer. Isn't that what you wanted? There isn't anything else you need from me, is there." It wasn't a question. 

Spike kept his back turned until he heard the crypt door open and close behind her. He collapsed slowly to the floor, sliding down the coarse stone of the tomb until he could sit back against it, cradling his injured hands in his lap and surrendering to the hot tears that spilled from his eyes. 

"I love you," he said again to the empty air of the crypt. _God help me. I still love you. _


	6. The Visit

**The Visit**

Clem returned a few hours later, bearing a grease-spotted bucket of anonymous fried chicken parts and a six-pack of beer. He found Spike slumped in the ratty upholstered chair, staring vacantly at the blank television. 

"Well," he said, setting the evening's bounty down on the nearest ledge, "you and the Slayer patch things up? How did she handle the news of your transmogrification?" 

"Didn't tell her," Spike mumbled. "We kind of got into an argument." 

Clem sighed. Really, it was a dramatic, lingering sigh worthy of a high school production of _Romeo and Juliet_. "I thought that was the whole point of your trip. All the trials..." 

"So Buffy could have what she deserves, yeh," Spike finished for him. "I'm just not sure that what she deserves is _me_ anymore." 

Clem pulled up one of the rickety folding chairs they had scrounged up for extra seating when Spike had returned from Africa. He turned it around to straddle it and leaned his arms over the back. "Hey now, don't sell yourself short. I think she really likes you." 

Spike rolled his eyes at the complete and utter incomprehension of the situation that Clem demonstrated, but didn't bother trying to explain, opting instead to let his friend continue. 

"It's just that she's always had issues with the whole 'soulless, evil undead' thing - but once she knows that's not a problem anymore-" 

"She'll love me for my charming self, that it? Don't think it'll be that easy, mate." 

If possible, Clem looked even more like a wounded Shar-pei. "Spike, you've lost a lot of weight since you've come back. You look half dead, honestly - and since you _aren't_ anymore, that's likely not a good thing. You need regular sleep and proper human food, and you're not getting it here. This," he waved one hand at the forlorn chicken bucket, "doesn't count. And..." He paused thoughtfully, his nose wrinkling even more than usual - an amazing feat, considering. "And the latrine you dug for yourself back in the tunnels really won't do for too much longer." 

Spike let his head fall back and closed his eyes. "Ta ever so." 

"You really should tell the Slayer; she could help you - though you might want to grab a shower at the Y first." 

_O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt / Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!...Indignities of the flesh, indeed. _

"Spike?" Clem ventured, when he had been silent for some time. 

"Shut up and pass me the beer." 

********** 

"Well?" Dawn's curious presence at the top of the stairs greeted Buffy as she came through the door. "How did it go?" 

Buffy took a moment while hanging up her scarf and coat to gather her thoughts together before turning back to look up at her sister. "It was... okay, I guess. Not exactly a 'kiss and make up' scenario, if that's what you were wondering." She set her hands on her hips in what she hoped was a posture of some surrogate-parental authority. "And shouldn't you already be in bed? It's a school night." 

Dawn just laughed. "As if. And miss this? And what do you mean by 'okay, I guess'? You apologized, right? Did he-" 

"He said he accepted my apology-" 

"Okay, good sign-" 

"Right before he told me to leave." 

"Oh. Okay, that's not so good." 

"It doesn't matter. I'm not going to be seeing him again. I don't need the... complications in my life. I did the right thing, what I had to do, and if Spike's having trouble dealing with that, it's his problem now." 

_Geez Buffy. Defensive much? _ Dawn diverted the conversation to less controversial grounds. "How did he look? Did he seem to be any different? I mean... he said he left looking for a way to change..." 

Buffy shrugged. "He looked pretty skinny - but then he always did - and his hair was a mess. I suppose that's some kind of unusual sign, for Spike. Other than that, he didn't really seem that different. He was certainly just as snarky as usual." She started up the stairs, her expression clearly saying she wanted to put the whole situation behind her. "Bed. Now. I've got an afternoon shift tomorrow, so I'll see you for breakfast, but you'll have to manage dinner on your own, okay? There's some chicken thawing in the fridge, and I know we still have some frozen veggies." 

"Broccoli, yuck," Dawn said under her breath, sensing it was simplest to not argue any further tonight. "Yeah, I'm okay with that. I'll leave you a plate in the fridge unless you want more DoubleMeat pleasure." 

Buffy's face showed what she thought of that idea. She kissed the top of Dawn's head as she came to the top of the stairs. "Thanks Dawnie. See you in the morning." 

"Good night, Buffy." _I guess if I want to find out anything in detail, I'll have to do it myself._

********** 

Spike woke late the next afternoon with a dry mouth, a raging headache, an empty stomach and a full bladder. He groaned, pushed his tattered blanket aside and sat up gingerly; keeping both hands at his head until he was sure it wasn't about to fly apart. _Goodbye to any supernatural resistance to alcohol, too_ he observed, barely winning the battle against his outraged stomach. _On the good side, it makes me a cheap date now - something that Buffy should surely appreciate. _

Clem was nowhere in sight - probably off already making arrangements for a game somewhere. Scattered cans on the floor testified mutely to the previous night's activities. Spike got slowly to his feet and struggled to slip his boots on without having to bend over. He gave silent thanks that he'd been too drunk the night before to manage to remove any more of his clothing; the stone of the crypt held a chill that bit him to the bone, even in the California afternoon sunshine. _Have to rummage up something more effective than this blanket - soon. _

He paused a moment to light a fat gold candle before heading to the opening in the floor and the ladder. The lower level was perpetually gloom-shrouded, and his night vision was just another of the prices he had paid. He moved precariously from rung to rung, shifting his balance slowly between two feet and one hand while the other managed the candle. This feat was rendered even more difficult than usual by the stiffness in his hands. 

The candle spilled only a limited puddle of light, washing over the debris scattered about below. Ultimately, Spike had decided that this was a small mercy; he didn't want to be reminded of how things had once been. Buffy had dropped in one of Riley's grenades to destroy the hatching Suvolte demons, and then less than a day later had dropped a metaphorical one into his life. He'd been scrambling to pick up the pieces ever since, and had never had the heart to begin again the job of reclaiming and redecorating the lower level. 

Even with his reduced senses, the reek of cordite was still strong in the subterranean chamber. He picked his way slowly through the rubble until he reached the mouth of the tunnel that eventually joined up with Sunnydale's extensive sewer system. Here the burned smell was overlain with a miasma of other scents; damp earth, mould, decay... and human waste. Spike made a face. If his now limited, human sense of smell was disturbed, this spot must surely be a reeking beacon for all manner of more olfactorily advanced nasties. Sighing, he set the candle into a niche in the near wall. 

After he had relieved himself, Spike picked up the small spade he had appropriated from the groundskeeper's shed and threw a few desultory shovelfuls of earth into the latrine hole, not really expecting it to do much good. _Best come up with an alternative soon - then maybe I can return the spade as well. _ Picking up the candle again, he retraced his path through the tunnel and his former bedroom. At the base of the ladder, he blew out the candle and tossed it up through the opening. After his trip in the shadows, the ambient afternoon light that came in through the crypt's frosted windows was enough for his dark-adapted eyes, and this way he could use both hands on the ladder. 

With one need attended to, Spike turned his attention to another. Rummaging in his small refrigerator turned up the remnants of last night's chicken, a few wizened apples and some bottles of water. Since even the thought of cold, greasy chicken was enough to make him want to sick up, he opted for one of the apples and some of the water. His damaged hands made it difficult to get the bottles open, but once he had he drank greedily, finishing one bottle before even sitting down. 

He was thankful when it seemed as though the apple was going to stay down. Little by little, he began to feel human again - a thought which provoked him to dark laughter. _Best put some headache powder and stomach remedies on the next shopping list if this is going to be a regular occurrence_. He inspected his hands and decided that although they weren't healing as quickly as they once would have, they were well on the way to full recovery. He rinsed off the traces of blood with the last of the water in his second bottle and wiped his hands dry on his jeans. 

Spike was standing and debating whether to go after a second apple when the door of the crypt was abruptly flung wide. In sheer reflex, he flinched from the light that spilled into the room, so he was unprepared for the human missile that launched herself across the crypt and into his arms before he could stop her. "Spike!" Dawn cried, and his arms closed about her reflexively as her head thumped hard against his chest. 

He knew the exact moment she detected the change in him; she froze in his embrace and looked up uncertainly. "Spike?" she whispered doubtfully. Her hands were spread across his chest, where they couldn't fail to feel the regular beat of his heart. Her green eyes widened and her mouth worked soundlessly. 

"It's still me, Niblet," he said gently. "I've just been through... some changes the past few months." 

"Uh-huh... I, uh... kinda noticed." After her initial shock, her curiosity overcame her and she peppered him with rapid-fire questions. "How? When? What happened? Does Buffy know?" 

Spike took her by the shoulders and held her at arm's length. "In order: I don't understand the details, a few months ago, I'll tell you what I do know, and no, Buffy doesn't know - and you're not to tell her, understand?" Once Dawn had nodded her agreement, he released her and waved her to a chair. "Sit down - this might take a while." 

On her way to the chair, she paused and turned back to him. "Spike?" 

"Yeh Bit?" he asked distractedly, gathering thoughts for his account of his summer. He was completely unprepared for the back of her closed fist that rocked his head to one side. 

"That's for what you tried to do to her." 

"I see someone's been taking lessons." He rubbed his tender jaw with one hand and took in her solemn face. "It's a fair cop, Dawn," he sighed. "I deserved that." 

She sank into the chair, still holding his gaze. "Then I won't say anything more about it. Now tell me what happened to you." 

********** 

"I can't believe you just said 'make me what I was' to a demon that powerful. What did you _think_ he would do with an open-ended request like that? How could you have been so stupid?" 

"Hey!" Spike bristled at this assessment. "Seems to me I remember Harm telling me how you ended up inviting her in one time. The pot's calling the kettle black, if you ask me." 

Dawn laughed. "Okay, point taken. I won't remind you if you won't remind me. Deal?" 

"Deal." They shook hands, mock-formally. Spike winced involuntarily as her hand tightened on his, and she noticed his injuries for the first time. 

"Now I know you've been talking to Buffy," she said. Seeing his wounded look, she quickly clarified, "In the sense that she makes you want to pound some part of your body repeatedly into inanimate objects, I mean. Happens to me all the time - only I don't usually go through with it." 

Mollified, he let himself smile. "She does have that effect sometimes, yeh. Nice to know I'm not the only one." 

"And apparently she's not all that observant, either," Dawn went on, only too happy to detail her sister's shortcomings. "I can't believe she didn't notice how you've changed." 

Another tilt of the emotional seesaw; his face closed up gravely again. "She didn't get that close." 

Dawn continued, unheeding. "I mean for one thing, anyone could see that you've got at least a month's worth of dark roots." She laughed. "You look like a hedgehog." 

He ran his hand self-consciously through his hair, tucking unruly strands behind his ear. He couldn't bear to go unshaven and had managed with the aid of a purloined disposable razor, but cutting his own hair was beyond him. It had begun curling down his neck. 

"And since dead guys shouldn't be able to grow hair, or..." Dawn looked up timidly. "Spike, do you want to come over for dinner and... umm... do your laundry?" She blushed. "I mean... you probably aren't getting enough vegetables... or something." 

"Like hygiene?" he snorted, understanding perfectly well what she'd left out, thanks to Clem. "Vampire crypts are a little short on amenities like showers, Bit. I've snuck into the Y a few times, but they're starting to get more observant than I like." He caught her eyes and voiced his true objection. "Thanks anyway, Dawn, but I don't think big sis would go for that." 

Dawn waved his concern aside. "Buffy's on a three-to-eleven shift today, and will probably head out patrolling right after. She'll never know. Your only danger lies in eating my cooking." 

_Soap. Cascading hot water in near-limitless quantities. Clean towels. A hot meal. William old boy, it seems you know more of seduction than I ever gave you credit for_. Spike sighed and gave in. "Is it that obvious how pathetic I am?" 

"Nah," she replied cheerfully. "I could always wait to ask you until you started hanging out brooding in the shadows and delivering enigmatic warnings about mystic events then slipping away." 

"Ouch. Now I know I've been insulted. Give us a minute, then." He set about collecting his small wardrobe from the various places it had been flung about the room and bundled it together in a plastic shopping bag. It made a pitifully small parcel. "Lead on, Bit." 

Dawn opened the door, and then turned back to watch, fascinated, as Spike stepped into the daylight. _There's a sight I never thought I'd see_. "Why don't you want Buffy to know what's happened to you?" 

He paused, blinking in the light. "I suppose I hope she'll judge me by my actions, and not by some checklist of conditions," he replied after some thought. 

"You mean like how I'm really a two-year-old ball of green glowy stuff, but because I act like her sister she forgets and that's how she treats me?" 

"Something like that, yeh," he admitted. "Though you have a distinct advantage in having a whole set of false memories implanted in everyone to go along with your existence." 

"Good luck with that," she said solemnly. _You'll need it_. 

"I'll take all the luck I can get, Bit," he replied as he carefully shut and secured the door behind them. 


	7. The Dinner

**The Dinner**

Spike followed Dawn up the steps to 1630 Revello Drive with some trepidation. He'd been an entirely different man the last time he'd been here so many months ago - the events here had precipitated his transformation, but it had been coming for some time. Still, he hoped that this return to familiar places wouldn't also mean a return to familiar behaviours. A soul was only a useful guide if you took the time to listen to it. Fall into old habits and soon it would be just an irritating background noise, easily ignored. He took a deep breath and crossed the threshold. 

He was surprised at how dark and uninhabited the house seemed as they entered. All the curtains had been drawn and there were no lights on. Dawn moved into the kitchen, flipping switches as she went. 

"Witches not home today, Niblet?" he asked, curious. The last thing he expected was Dawn's stricken face as she turned back to him. He knew then that he hadn't been the only one to experience catastrophic changes. 

"Oh Spike... Tara's dead." Her face crumpled into tears as she relived the traumatic events of the spring. Spike enfolded her in his arms and steered them both to the couch. He held her tightly, stroking her hair until she calmed and her shaking shoulders stilled many minutes later. 

"I'm sorry I'm such a baby, Spike," Dawn managed at last, wiping her streaming eyes on her sleeve and reaching to the table for the box of tissues there. "I forgot that you weren't here when everything happened." 

"I don't think you're a baby, Dawn," he said gently, taking a tissue and blotting the tears that she had missed. "But I think you had better tell me what's been going on while I was away." 

********** 

An hour later he was still trying to digest the implications of everything he had learned: Tara dead, shot by Warren who had in turn been killed - flayed - by Willow turned to dark magic. Then the world had been in danger of ending as she tried to drown her pain. The only thing that had been able to stop her when even Giles had been overcome was Xander. _Wouldn't have thought Harris had it in him_, he thought with grudging admiration. _Might be more to the whelp than I realized. _

"I wish I had been here," he offered solemnly when she had finished. "I could have helped, somehow." 

"There was nothing you could have done - we all tried. I'm just glad you're back now. Buffy is too," she insisted. "She just doesn't know how to say it yet." 

Even in the face of her grim story, she could force a gloomy smile from him. _Can't be anyone more hopelessly optimistic about romance than a teenage girl. Something that came with the hormones, I suppose. _ Dawn jumped up suddenly, startling him and making him quickly review the past few moments, fearing he might have actually said some of that aloud. 

"Omigosh, the bathroom!" she cried. "I completely forgot. Wait here and I'll just get some of my stuff out of the way. I'll get you a robe so I can get started on your laundry." With that, she darted up the stairs, leaving him to contemplate that there was probably also nothing more mercurial in mood than a teenage girl. 

To the accompaniment of mysterious bangs and thuds from upstairs, Spike stood and began to wander about the main floor, recalling some of his previous visits to Buffy's home. There hadn't been so many in all that he couldn't remember individual details. 

The kitchen reminded him strongly of Joyce. Every corner brought back memories of talks and laughter they had shared in the most unlikely circumstances. He wondered what Joyce would make of him now, and whether she would have granted him her blessing in his rocky and intermittent courtship of her eldest daughter. He liked to think that she had seen something in him beyond the demon, and sent a few stray thoughts heavenward, praying for grace. 

One by one he moved through the rooms, cataloguing memories, until he ended up at the base of the stairs. His hand caressed the worn newel as he remembered. The first time he'd come in, as they plotted to defeat Angelus; seeing Buffy alive again, descending the stairs - were it to happen now, his heart would surely stop; his ignominious flight down these same stairs... Given the strength of the emotions engendered by even such everyday environs, Spike began to have doubts about the wisdom of entering the bathroom itself. 

He was shaken out of his reverie by the sound of Dawn thundering down the stairs. "Okay, the bathroom's relatively decent now. Here's a robe you can wear. Sorry it's kind of girly." She tossed it to him from the landing. Spike looked up to catch it, and froze. 

The blue silky fabric caught the air and fluttered open, spreading like an avenging angel come to strike him down for his sins. _Thin cloth warmed by her skin moulded to her breast, belly and thigh beneath him. He needed her so much, and her struggle only inflamed his desire. Slick, slippery material in his grasping, clutching hands, tearing with a stuttering fabric scream as he pulled it from her shoulder..._

Spike clutched at the thin material of the robe, his breath cawing harshly in his throat and his heart pounding fit to break his ribs. "Can't... I can't..." He trembled, and buried his face in the robe. 

Dawn slowed uncertainly as she came down the stairs. "Spike, what's wrong?" she asked, entertaining heroic visions of having to apply CPR or artificial respiration in the middle of the living room floor. 

He raised a pain-hollowed face to hers. "She was wearing this..." He couldn't finish. 

"Oh," she replied, confused, then when understanding dawned: "Oh! Oh Spike, I'm so sorry... I'll find something else right away." 

Despite his reaction, he was strangely reluctant to release the robe, forcing Dawn to pull the silky fabric through his clenched fingers. She took it and wadded it up in her hands. 

"Maybe I should go," he suggested. "My being here... wasn't really a good idea." 

"No, don't. Please. It was my fault for not thinking. I'll find you something else." She ran back up the stairs in search of a garment not so laden with painful associations. 

Spike spent the time while Dawn was upstairs again consciously trying to control his breathing and force his heart rate back to something approaching normal. He was back in control of himself when she returned bearing a large floral print terry robe that must have once belonged to either Willow or Tara. Buffy would have swum in it. Best of all, the overwhelming flowery scent that clung to it wasn't anything like hers. 

********** 

He wasn't sure he'd be able to face entering the bathroom, but apparently his body had exhausted its adrenaline reserves for the time being. The only sensation he could manage was a numb heartache, as though his heart were a limb to which circulation had been cut off for some time. Sighing, he removed his clothes and left them in a heap outside the door for Dawn to collect. 

For the longest time he just stood under the scalding spray with his head down and his hands braced against the wall in front of him, trying to overcome the shuddering in his limbs. The shakes gradually subsided, and he turned the temperature down to a less skin-searing level, found the shampoo, and in the mundane process of washing up began to recover. 

Spike emerged at last from the steam-filled bathroom, his hair slicked back and feeling slightly ridiculous swaddled in the voluminous floral dressing gown. He padded barefoot quietly down the stairs to where he could hear Dawn singing along with some unidentifiable boy-band on the radio, accompanied by clattering dishes. The sheer domesticity of the scene made him laugh, and he rounded the corner feeling lighter of heart than he had in some time. 

"Smells good, Niblet," he said, startling Dawn out of her song. She grinned at the uncharacteristic sight of Spike in a bathrobe, and he felt a twinge of trepidation. "I hope you can keep a secret - this would be devastating to my hard won reputation if word ever got out." 

"Oh didn't I tell you? Xander's coming over this evening to check up on me," she said, deadpan. Her eyes twinkled at the sudden look of panic on his face. 

"You had better be joshing with me, Bit," he replied in a tone approaching his former growl. 

Dawn couldn't contain herself; she burst into giggles. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding," she insisted, between fits of laughter. "But you should have seen your face! It was priceless!" 

"Very droll, I'm sure," he said dryly, seating himself at the table and carefully managing the folds of the robe around him. "How much longer do I have to endure this humiliation?" 

"I just put everything in the dryer, so about another hour. Supper should only be another ten minutes or so. It's another Dawn one-pan special," she said critically. She turned back to the stove and poured some mushroom soup over the cut-up chicken and broccoli already in the pan, then reached for the curry paste. 

"You're one up on me already," Spike admitted. "I haven't a clue in the kitchen. Back when I had to eat... food, we had a cook who took care of it. Cooking was one of the things one left to the servants, you know," he teased, then threw his hands up in defence when Dawn brandished the spatula at him, laughing. 

"Maybe we should arrange a trade," she suggested. "Cooking lessons and dinner once a week, in exchange for some Slayer-type training?" 

"Have to test the quality of the cooking first, don't you think?" He ducked nimbly to avoid the balled-up dishrag she threw across the kitchen. 

********** 

Whatever qualms he might have had over Dawn's cooking vanished when she set the plate before him. Poured out over rice it made a hearty plateful and he set to with a will. All conversation came to a halt as he wolfed down two servings almost before he remembered to breathe. 

"Wow, you really _were_ hungry," Dawn marvelled, and he looked up somewhat shamefaced. She only smiled. "It's always more fun to cook for someone who appreciates it. Buffy always looks at me like I might be trying to poison her. Maybe you'll let me try out some more interesting recipes on you." 

"Well, noble self-sacrifice in a good cause ought to net me something for the positive side of the cosmic balance," he said with a grin as he collected his plate and utensils together. "Can't pass up any opportunities, you know." 

Dawn got up from the table and took another plate from the cupboard to fill with what remained in the pan. "But you've got a soul now, right? Doesn't that automatically make you one of the good guys?" 

"A soul isn't a 'get out of karma free' card, Bit. I'll have to live a long time to make up for the things I've done. And 'soonest begun, soonest mended', as my mum used to say." He sighed. "But thanks for the vote of confidence." 

"I always thought you were already more on our side than you wanted to admit. Not to mention it's hard to be Mr. Evil now in a flowery bathrobe," she laughed. 

Dawn covered the plate with cling film to leave in the fridge for Buffy while Spike cleared the table. They were just finishing up the dishes together when the kitchen timer rang, indicating that the dryer was done at last. Spike set the last of the dishes back into the cupboard. "I'll go retrieve my laundry." _And maybe some dignity along with my pants_, he thought as he descended the basement stairs. 

He pulled the laundry from the dryer, enjoying the warmth. Before bothering to fold anything back into the shopping bag, he drew a pair of jeans from the pile and tugged them on impatiently, hissing as the hot metal of the studs met newly sensitive flesh. The tee shirt by contrast was pure pleasure; the heat soaked into his skin and further relaxed his muscles. _A bloke could definitely get used to this. _

He stood barefoot in front of the dryer as he packed up his other jeans and few shirts. As he turned to make his way up the stairs, his eye was caught by assorted camping equipment stacked on the shelves by the stairs. He moved closer and was fingering the thick fabric of a sleeping bag thoughtfully when Dawn called out for his attention down the stairs. 

"Are you decent?" 

_Now there's an interesting question. _ "Well I'm dressed at least, Bit," he replied. "Can't claim more than that." 

She came down the stairs bearing a large paper bag. "I put together kind of a care package for you. You know... some quasi-food-like items that don't have to be cooked. Oh, and I had an extra toothbrush from the last time I was at the dentist, so I threw that in along with some toothpaste, soap and a towel. Since you said you were a little short on the amenities back at your crypt." 

He couldn't speak; his voice caught in his throat and he leaned heavily against the shelf, knocking the sleeping bags to the floor. _She doesn't know the goodness in her; it's simply in her nature to be kind. This is what I could have been... this is what I have to strive for now. I don't know if I can. _

"Spike?" She looked at him in some confusion. "Did you want to borrow some camping gear?" 

_And I am_ not _going to cry in front of her like some damn pansy. _ He used one arm to pull her close and kissed the top of her head - a more difficult task than it would have been even a few months ago, she was still growing so quickly. "Thank you," was at first all he could manage without betraying quavers in his voice. 

"Are you okay?" Dawn asked as he released her. 

He bent and picked up the sleeping bag from where it had fallen, using the move to disguise his swipe at his suspiciously damp eyes. "I think I'm going to be, yeah." 


	8. Friends Come Visiting

Okay, you knew it had to happen eventually. That whole chapter naming convention? "_The **Noun**_"? It was cute for a while, but then it began to drive me crazy, trying to make it fit. That doesn't mean it won't make a repeat appearance at some point, but I'm not going knock myself out trying.   
------------------- 

**Friends Come Visiting**

_Halfway there. Only four hours to go._ Buffy wiped the counter in front of her again, though it still glistened from the last time. There was only a moderate dinner rush weekdays and then just stragglers until closing time, which meant the hours dragged by. She was now _de facto_ assistant manager with more seniority than anyone else currently employed, having stayed on when the college students had quit at the end of the summer. Of course, since nothing had been made official, all that really meant was more responsibility and more time spent in closing the store, without a commensurate increase in pay. She sighed, and wiped the counter again. _Three hours, fifty-eight minutes. _

"Hey Buffy," said a familiar, melancholy voice. 

"Xander, hi!" she said, looking up into her friend's face. He'd become quite the regular over the summer, dropping in every night after work in preference to returning home to an empty apartment and cooking for one. His waistband was certainly showing the effect of the DoubleMeat diet. _Uh-oh, that's even less happy face than usual. _ "The usual again? Or can I finally convince you to try something from the other side of the menu board?" she asked, trying to lighten his expression. 

"There's a 'for lease' sign in the window of the Magic Box," he said without preamble. "She's selling the store." 

_It's going to take more than a free DoubleMeat Medley to handle this one. _ "Darlene, I'm taking my evening break early," she said to her co-worker at the counter. "Call me if there's anything you can't handle. Come on," she said, grabbing a couple of burgers off the warming rack before turning back to Xander again. "Let's go talk." 

********** 

"I can't believe she would do this without even telling me," he said before they had even sat down in the break room. Buffy handed him one of the burgers and he opened it absently. "It means she doesn't intend to come back. How could she do this to me?" 

"She hasn't tried to contact you at all?" Buffy asked. 

"Not once the entire summer. I haven't seen her since the day we stopped Willow. Hell, I don't even know if she's in this dimension any more. For all I know, she's gone back to Arashmahar and is working for D'Hoffryn again." Xander swallowed a too-large bite of his burger. "There's a reno crew in the store now. I talked to the foreman, but he said it was all arranged through her lawyers and the insurance company." 

"What about asking some of the guests from her side of the wedding?" she suggested, unwrapping her own burger. "If you have addresses for any of them, maybe you could get in touch and see what they know." 

"I don't know where any of that stuff is any more. And anyway, what's the use?" he declared fatalistically. "She's made it pretty clear she doesn't want to hear from me." 

"Xander, you can't just give up on her this way," Buffy protested. "Not if you really love her." 

"Hey, she's the one who took off," he retorted defensively. 

_You started it_, was what she wanted to say, but knew it wouldn't help. Another possibility suddenly suggested itself to her. "What about Clem? He was there, maybe he could help." 

"You mean floppy guy?" Xander asked, flapping both hands at the side of his head in imitation of two of Clem's more outstanding characteristics. "I suppose..." 

"He's been living in Spike's crypt over the summer. You should be able to find him without too much trouble." 

"I don't know. Any friend of Spike's is hardly going to be a friend of mine. Leaving town was the smartest thing _that_ bastard's ever done." 

_Oh. Oh dear. I knew there was something wrong with that idea. _ "Xander," she said tentatively. "Spike's come back." 

His face closed up into near-mindless fury. "That's it; I'm really going to kill him this time." Xander surged to his feet, as though he were about to head over to stake Spike immediately. Buffy stopped him with an unbreakable grip on his arm. 

"Xander, I'd... really rather you didn't," she managed to say. "He's... mostly harmless now." 

"What _is_ it with you?" He tried to shake her hand from his arm, but she wouldn't release him. "How can you still defend him after everything he's done to you? To us? Anya had sex with him right on that damn table in the store. We all saw them. How could I ever touch her again without thinking about that?" He was shouting now, not caring who heard. Chicken caps pecked intermittently at the window glass, but no one dared to enter the room. 

"That was about trying to kill the pain, Xander. Trust me, I know all about that feeling." She felt a sudden electric thrill down her spine, and took a deep breath before releasing her hold on him. _Ever have a moment of perfect clarity? I think I'm finally beginning to understand why to forgive is 'divine'. There's no other way to finally achieve some peace._ "She can feel the human desire for vengeance. As long as you make your apology to her conditional on hers to you, you'll never get her back." 

"So now you're the expert on relationships? That hardly seems likely, what with you screwing the evil undead and all." As soon as the words had left his mouth, he realized what he had said. "God, Buffy, I'm sorry. It's just... this whole thing with Anya is making me crazy." He ran his hands through his hair and began pacing the room, the rest of his dinner cooling and forgotten. 

"I know," she said, trying not to let the hurt show in her voice. _I forgive you, too. I know_ exactly _how much it hurts. _ "That's the same reason I went to see him. To apologize for the way we - the way I treated him last year. To stop the crazies." 

Xander stared at her open-mouthed for some time before he could reply. "_You_ apologized to _him_? To that - that _rapist_? What the hell were you thinking, Buffy?" 

_So much for being sorry. I'm not going to let you make me defensive; I_ know _I did the right thing. _ "Yes Xander, I apologized. Because whatever he did to me doesn't change the way I behaved." 

"Why should you care how you treated him?" he protested. "He's just a monster. An evil, soulless thing. He's killed hundreds, maybe _thousands_ of people. Just because he's got a chip in him now doesn't change that." 

"Xander," she said softly. "How many people died last year, dancing themselves to death, because of a demon you called? How many people, Xander?" He looked away, shamed. She went on, not willing to spare anyone now that she'd started speaking the truth. "Or how many people died, including Ms. Calendar, when I couldn't bring myself to stop Angelus soon enough, because I kept hoping to find Angel in him? We're supposed to be the good guys. We've got the souls that are supposed to help us do the right thing. Spike doesn't, and he's still helped us. He didn't deserve what I did to him." 

"You're just fooling yourself into thinking that he's a good man, so you don't have to think about the two of you," he challenged. "To salve your conscience." 

"No, I'm not," she countered. "I know very well that he's neither. He's not good, and he's not a man. But that doesn't make what I did acceptable. To believe that would be almost as bad as saying Willow did nothing wrong when she killed Warren, just because he was evil." She sighed. "Spike is what he is - a vampire without a soul. I shouldn't be surprised that he's not very skilled at doing the right thing; I should be surprised that he even can manage to consider it." 

"So you think I should just forgive them both for what they did? Just like that?" His voice was incredulous. "That's it? No consequences? Nothing?" 

"Xander, if you _don't_ go ahead and finally forgive, you're going to let someone you can't stand live rent-free in your head forever. I finally got tired of carrying the pain around. So yes," she said evenly, "I guess I've forgiven him, and I've apologized to him. I did both because they were something I needed for myself, not for him." 

"Sorry Buff," he said, heading for the door. "I just don't buy it. Spike owes me, owes us all, and I'm going to make him pay. Somehow." Xander yanked open the door and walked out, scattering the curious witnesses. 

_Oh, that went well. _ Buffy looked down at her cold, congealed burger, marked with only a single bite. Her appetite had vanished. She rewrapped the foil around it and tossed it into the garbage before returning to the front of the restaurant. "Doesn't anyone work around here?" she snapped, seeing the inquisitive looks. They scurried back to their appointed tasks. 

_Three hours and thirty minutes. Sometimes I really hate this place. _

********** 

Spike entered the crypt and found Clem watching television with a large bowl of chips at his side. He dropped Dawn's care package, his laundry and all the equipment he had hauled out of the Summers basement in an untidy heap in the middle of the floor, and then grabbed a handful of chips. "I'm an idiot, Clem. It's official." He threw himself into a folding chair that squealed in protest at this treatment. 

"Well, you might not qualify for Mensa, Spike, but I think 'idiot' is probably a bit harsh," Clem replied, always ready to look on the bright side. "Why would you say that?" He got up and turned off the TV. "Does this have anything to do with where you've been this afternoon? I was getting worried." 

Spike smiled helplessly at friend's mother-hen nature. "Sorry, _Dad_, I'll be sure to leave a note next time. I was visiting Dawn." 

"She's a lovely girl, isn't she?" Clem said, distracted from his original question. "We had some wonderful visits over the summer. She really likes to play Parcheesi." 

Spike was forced to cough to cover a laugh. Dawn couldn't stand Parcheesi, but was too soft-hearted to let Clem know it. "We had quite the visit ourselves, and she's given me some stuff - and some ideas. Here, give me a hand with this, would you?" He finished his chips and got back to his feet, dusting his palms on his jeans. 

Between the two of them, they sorted Spike's new possessions into order in only a few minutes. "I'm going to need to scrounge up another dresser from the dump," he said, looking at the transformation of his living space. "I don't want to have to explain to Dawn why I had to keep my clean laundry on the floor." _And have to face the wrath of Dawn? Don't think so. _

The wolves seemed a little farther from the door today than at any time since his unexpected transformation. His small refrigerator now held bread, cheese, apples and a pint of milk. Balanced precariously on top of it were a variety of other foods and near-food items: peanut butter, crackers, chips, a couple cans each of baked beans and beanie-weenies... _going to need a can opener..._ instant hot chocolate mix (_the kind with the little marshmallows_, he observed, and his heart ached), powdered drink mix, fruit cups, tinned pudding, soup mix... _and a kettle, and a cup, and a plate, and some spoons..._ He wasn't sure that the half package of red Twizzlers qualified as even _near_-food, but he wasn't about to complain. 

"Hey, are those oysters?" Clem asked, seeing a small, rectangular can stacked with the others. "Man, I love smoked oysters, don't you?" 

"Help yourself," Spike replied, tossing him the can. "Sorry I can't offer you a fork." Oysters didn't strike him as the sort of thing either Buffy or Dawn would have voluntarily purchased; he concluded that Joyce had bought them for herself, and that they'd probably been sitting on a shelf for well on two years or more. _Not_ the thing to test a relatively new digestive system with. 

Clem pulled open the tab on the can eagerly and wasted no time pulling out the fragrant morsels with his fingers as he walked back to his chair. As the odour wafted out, Spike suddenly found himself grateful that he had no more than a human sense of smell anymore. He grabbed up the water container he had borrowed along with the sleeping bag, and headed for the door. "Just going to step out to the nearest water tap and fill up," he said, hefting the container for emphasis. "Be right back." He hoped that the smell of oysters would have dissipated by the time he returned. His last sight as he shut the door behind him was of Clem eagerly slurping the dregs of juice from the can, and he shuddered. 

He returned to find that not only had Clem finished the oysters; he'd polished off the bowl of chips as well. Sighing, Spike set the full water container beside the fridge and raided his own stash for more snacks. _Girl's got a twisted sense of humour_, he thought, tearing open a small bag of garlic flavoured potato chips and joining Clem in front of the television. "Anything good on?" 

"Actually, Spike, I wanted to talk to you about what you said when you first came in. I'm worried to hear you so down on yourself," Clem said, looking concerned as he flicked the remote to shut off the TV. 

_Got to learn to keep my mouth shut. _ "It's nothing." 

"No, really, I think you need to open up about it. Yesterday on Oprah, Dr. Phil was just talking about how psychologically damaging it can be to hold in negative feelings, and-" 

"I'm an idiot, Clem," he said, putting down the chips and resigning himself to his fate, "because of what I said to Buffy yesterday. I was so busy trying to get some of my own back that I wasn't really listening to what she said." He ran one hand wearily over his face as he remembered his words to her. "She came to apologize, and all I could do was rabbit on about how badly she'd treated me and how I deserved much better." 

"Well, she _was_ pretty hard on you..." Clem began. 

"I don't think that's the point. She decided that she needed to apologize, to put the past to rights, and I was too preoccupied to notice." He sighed. "This soul business is harder than I thought." 

"Are you going to go see her? To tell her that?" 

"No. She doesn't need that; she apologized in order to let it go. The least I can do for her is to honour that and forgive her." 

"So now what?" Clem wanted to know. 

"So now, I try to work out a way to atone. To her, the others - to the world, I suppose. I've been pissing about feeling sorry for myself for too long. And the first step, my friend, is money - _honest_ money, so I don't have to pinch stuff any more, or beg food from Dawn, because they surely can't afford it." 

Clem was instantly enthusiastic. "I know where we can find any number of high-stakes games," he suggested. "And I've got this new system--" 

"Won't work," Spike interrupted, shaking his head. "Any one of my former associates happens to catch a glimpse of my shiny new reflection and I'm instantly _persona_ even less _grata_ than I've been recently. And it won't take vamps and other demons more than a few seconds to sniff out the changes in me. I don't need to be fending off attacks from half the demon population of Sunnyhell while I try to work things out. I've only kept out of trouble so far by staying out of sight - and by killing everything that got close enough to find out. Once I've got the dosh, though, everything changes." 

He got up and crossed back to the stone tombs. "Fortunately, unlike most of my plans, I have actually given that some thought." It took every almost every ounce of his strength, but he slid the lid of one tomb aside. Reaching in, he pulled out a large, fabric-covered box, which he set on the stone. 

Shortly after Dru had first turned him, when he still persisted in human behaviours out of force of habit, he had returned home to his family's estate. He knew that the cook's assistant slept in a small alcove off the kitchen in order to tend the stove fires and start the day's bread before dawn. He had pounded on the pantry door to wake her, and the poor girl had been so confused at seeing him apparently returned from the dead that she had said 'come in here to the light where I can better see you, sir.' He had rewarded her by snapping her neck and disposing of her body in the bushes by the carriage house. 

He'd wandered the silent halls while his family lay sleeping, and nicked whatever valuables - mainly jewellery - that took his fancy, thinking to pawn them later. Angelus had thrashed him thoroughly for this indiscretion, for taking the chance of calling attention to themselves. Ultimately he had realized how pointless money was to his new existence, but he couldn't bring himself to dispose of the items. He had given many of the pieces to Druscilla and then buried the rest, securely wrapped in oilcloth, under loose stones in the fence that marked the boundary of his family's land. Whether it was luck or fate, there they had remained undisturbed until he had returned home this summer at last, and he'd smuggled them and himself back to Sunnydale. 

More than one hundred and twenty years later, they could help finance a new beginning if he could find the right buyer. An idea struck him. _But first..._ Spike opened the water-stained case and caressed the few remaining treasures inside. Behind him, Clem sucked air in appreciation. Most of what was left simply rattled loose in the case, but there were a few smaller jewellery boxes as well. These he opened one at a time, until the contents of one in particular caught his eye. He tucked the small box into one pocket with a smile, and then went looking for a piece of paper and a pen. 

Minutes later, he surveyed the resulting note with a critical eye. 'A gift... my word... not stolen...' _Well, not_ recently, _anyway. And most of this stuff would have come down to me in the natural order of things. Probably. _ He straightened and folded the paper into thirds, then in half again, to fit his pocket as well. _Shading the truth already, Will? Can't get her to accept it otherwise, can I? Am I going to debate myself this way for the rest of my life? Wonder if Peaches talks to himself this much. _ He grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. "Gonna be out late, Dad," he said to Clem with a grin as he left. "Don't wait up." 

********** 

The crypt door flew open with a crash, sending dust billowing and Clem jumping from his chair, looking to see the cause of the commotion. He relaxed into a smile when he identified his visitor. "Xander! Long time no see! Listen, I was really sorry about the way the whole wedding thing--" 

Xander had no interest in Clem's small talk. "Where is he?" he demanded. "Where is that blood-sucking son-of-a-bitch? And don't tell me he's gone, because I've seen Buffy and I know he's back." 

Clem's face grew stern as he moved to the door. "There's no need for that kind of language. Spike's gone out for the evening and I don't know when he'll be back. You'll have to come back another time." He moved forward, blocking Xander as he tried to come further into the crypt. 

"I said, I want to know--" Xander grabbed at Clem's arm in an attempt to push him aside. Under the fabric of his shirt, Clem's loose skin slipped easily over his flesh and Xander couldn't keep his grip. Clem had no such difficulty. He curled one hand into the front of Xander's shirt and lifted him with contemptuous ease until his feet left the floor. Three steps carried them back over the threshold, where Clem set Xander gently back on his feet. Xander tensed, expecting a blow, but Clem just shook his head sadly. 

"I'm sorry I had to do that, but Spike is my friend, and I won't tolerate this kind of behaviour in his home. You're welcome to come back as soon as your manners improve. Good night." With that, he shut the door in Xander's astonished face. 

------------------   
_Author's defensive postscript:_   
So, pick on poor Xander much? Before anyone thinks I've got it in for him or Nicky Brendon, based on this story and "Fragments", I think I should explain. I'm looking for a way to examine the concepts of forgiveness and love, and lately in season 6 he was coming up a little short. Well, they all were, but I'd like to look at the various stages that everyone is going to take in their own time and in their own way. I haven't written him off yet, because this story is taking me on a much wilder ride than I ever expected when I began it after "Seeing Red", when I thought it would be a short short mood piece. And I haven't even looked at what's been done to poor Willow, yet. However, this will remain at the heart of it all, the story of Buffy and Spike. 

So glad you could come along on redemption road.   
P.P.S. Clem rocks!! 


	9. Epiphany

Please note the rating change to R for non-explicit sexual situations.   
----------------------- 

  
**Epiphany**

Spike hunched his shoulders and drew the collar of his cloth jacket up around his ears to ward off the chill of the mid October night. Having not been bothered by weather for over a century, even a California autumn seemed extreme. Really, it was nothing when compared to his memories of bone-chilling rainy English winters, where there had been no central heating and only inefficient fireplaces or wood stoves to warm the rooms. It was a time of year to envy the servants who worked in the kitchen near the radiant hobs. 

Telling himself he'd felt worse didn't make him any warmer, only induced an unpleasant nostalgia. He certainly didn't miss the perpetual English damp. In the winter the pervasive moisture had often left draperies and bedclothes covered with a fine furring of mould and made warming pans filled with burning coals a necessity rather than a luxury before heading to bed. _Giles was mad to go back there. I suppose this makes me officially Californian, to complain about weather as mild as this. _

Walking briskly back to Buffy's house warmed him sufficiently to put an end to his complaints for a while. The porch light was on but no others burned; the main floor was dark and secured. As he watched, the light upstairs in Dawn's window was also extinguished. 

He made his way onto the porch, looking for the best location to leave his gift and the accompanying note. After much internal debate, he decided to simply leave it propped against the front door. It was a trade off between the having it seen by some passing thief or having Buffy miss it, and he decided he'd rather risk the former than the latter. The note he tucked into the gap between the door and the frame so that it couldn't blow away. Stepping back off the porch, he surveyed the results with some satisfaction. 

Despite his earlier complaints about the temperature, Spike wasn't in the mood to head back to the crypt immediately, knowing he'd feel smothered by Clem's concern for him. Away from worrying friends he could let his cheery demeanour slip. Solitude never meant silence any more, not with a thousand voices in his memory crying out. Every scream, every plea for mercy he had ever denied echoed endlessly in his head. 

When he'd come back to himself there in the cave, the very first coherent thought in his head was _Oh god, please let me die_. He'd crawled back out onto the still-warm sand of the desert and lay there, waiting for sunrise to come and put an end to the agony that was so much more than one heart should hold. Words of repentance from the _Book of Common Prayer_ that he thought forgotten along with his childhood tumbled from his lips in desperation as he awaited his judgement. 

And then the sun had risen and he had not been destroyed and he knew he had experienced more than one transfiguration. For a while he had considered staying out in the desert and letting a lion devour him, but he realized that he didn't even know whether he was in a part of Africa where lions were found. William's education had been strong on British history and literature, long dead Greeks and Romans and _their_ history and literature, and dead languages - and completely lacking in any information about a world considered inferior by most of his fellow citizens. Spike, of course, just never gave a damn. Deciding that death wasn't on the agenda for the day, a certain native stubbornness and pride had surfaced that had kept him going and had brought him home again. Home to Sunnydale. _Dying's easy. Living is hard. I guess I'm supposed to live. _

Half an hour of walking in this frame of mind had led him to decidedly the wrong side of Sunnydale's tracks and well out of his usual territory. He hoped to keep out of the way of anyone or anything that had known him before. _It's not hiding, it's strategic planning. I need to get in some thinking time before I head back, and it's hard to do that whilst fending off attackers. Bit of a good brood, really, though I'll never match Angel for style. Thank god. _ If he didn't mock, he'd surely go mad. So he submitted with nettled grace to Clem's presence in his life as a shield against despair. He allowed Dawn's adolescent exuberance for living wash over him in the hope that some of it would remain with him. And he tried - without much success as yet - to discover what the purpose of his new existence was supposed to be. 

Shadowed streets inefficiently lit by streetlights led him at last to a strip of sex shops, peep shows and clubs that represented Sunnydale's more squalid underbelly. Drawn unwillingly by the light and noise of the district, he turned down a narrow street lit mainly with the buzzing, flickering neon of shop signs. The harsh light sharply shadowed his lean face and returned him to something approaching his undead pallor under the cold glow. 

No high school kids or college students would ever find their way to this lurid lane. This was a refuge for grim-faced blue-collar workers and labourers; long-time Sunnydale residents who knew full well something not quite right dwelled along side them but chose to drown that knowledge in the oblivion of loud music, cheap alcohol and even cheaper lives. Regular human debauchery had been taken and twisted by the proximity of the Hellmouth into something altogether darker and nastier. The occasional shriek of a siren added to the cacophony of voices as revellers - liberally doused with alcoholic antifreeze - braved the chill night air on patios and along the street as they stumbled from one questionable establishment to another. _Who needs to see hell, with pandemonium putting on a show here nightly? _

Laughter only a little short of a scream echoed down the street, drowning out the voices in Spike's head for a moment. Startled from his introspection, he found his lids prickling with incipient tears, and he dashed at his eyes angrily with the heels of his hands to thwart them. An alleyway offered gloomy sanctuary and he plunged into it gratefully to escape the crowds and regain some composure. _I am not going to become some damn wailing Willie. _

"Hey baby," came a woman's voice from further down the alley. "You lookin' for some company? You look like you could use some cheering up." Spike strained in the dim light of the alley mouth to make out the owner of the voice. A pale rounded form glided forward out of the shadows. _Vampire_ was his first thought, and he reached with one hand into his jacket for the stakes concealed in the inner pocket there. He extended his other arm to block her approach. 

He relaxed only marginally when his extended hand met warm, bare human flesh; there were still any number of threats she could represent. Painted lips curved invitingly as she placed a hand over his own on her arm. "What do you say? You and me could have a real nice time." Her clinging red scoop-neck top, short side-slit leather skirt and spike-heeled boots testified wordlessly to the kind of fun she intended. 

"Sorry, not interested," Spike replied, releasing his hold on the stake in order to gently disentangle himself from her grasp. 

"What's the matter, hon? You don't like girls?" 

_Sure I do. One in particular. Can't have her, though_, he thought, even as his body protested that it had indeed been much too long. A long time ago in his old life, before Sunnydale - _ 'B.S.' There's a telling truth_ - he would have taken her up on her implied offer, then drained her and used the resulting vitality to make love to Dru - probably while standing over the empty corpse. Self-loathing overrode the dregs of lust and he shuddered. 

It had been a bad mistake to let his wandering mind and feet lead him here, as though his conscience had judged it a fit place to match his thoughts. It was a dangerous place, where hearts, minds and lives were regularly lost and no one much gave a damn either way. _A perfect hunting ground, in other words. _ And he had marched right into the thick of it. Spike forced himself to gather up his scattered wits and applied a harsh mental slap to his whiny conscience. Now the plan had to be how to get out of this neighbourhood unseen. There were too many creatures holding too many grudges against him to allow himself to remain exposed here. Having decided to live, he was damned if he'd let anyone else end his life before he was ready. 

Still intent on plying her tired trade, the hooker worked her way up against him, reaching one hand to his crotch. "How about just a quick hand job, sweet? Only ten bucks," she wheedled, almost disinterestedly. 

"I said leave off!" Spike replied roughly, twisting to shove her back against the alley wall. Before she could recover her footing he was away, out of the alley mouth and plunging back into the maelstrom of humanity streaming by. 

"You cheap prick!" she yelled in outrage at his retreating back. "You probably can't even get it up!" 

_Don't have even ten dollars_, he retorted silently as he moved off down the street. 

A chill paranoia began to come over him; every doorway now held predatory eyes; every window concealed the enemies of a man who had made himself unpopular with humans and demons alike, and who was now uncertain of his ability to even defend himself. _I have to get out of here, _ fear whispered at the back of his brain. _I may already have been spotted. _ His traitorous human heart thundered in his chest and his breath came hissing between tightly clenched teeth. Somewhere deep in his mind, Spike hammered at a locked door, screaming. _What the hell is happening to me? _

Five minutes later his breathing and heart rate had slowed somewhat, but he remained plastered tightly against the wall of the nearest building. It took all of his strength of will to peel himself away and stumble back in the direction he'd come. As he lurched back past the alley where she'd accosted him, he could see that the hooker hadn't wasted any time regretting his departure. She was entwined with a bear of a man who had his beefy hands twisted in her dark hair and his face pushed closely into her throat. 

Spike paused, uncertain, until a nearly subsonic growl lifted the hairs at the nape of his neck. Raw nerve endings screamed 'run', so he did - into the alley. He crashed into the vampire and ripped him away from her, forcing him back against the bricks. Spike held one arm like an iron bar across his throat and looked up - way up - to confront a pair of piss-yellow eyes and a foul-breathed, razor-toothed grin. 

"Well isn't this interesting," the vampire snarled, not at all impaired by the arm at his throat. "She your girlfriend or something? I wasn't going to be very long," he leered. Behind them, she clutched at her throat to staunch the flow of blood from her wounds. 

Two large hands clawed into Spike's upper arms and pushed him back - then froze. "Spike?" the vamp asked incredulously, his ugly face twisted even more in fear and confusion. "Man, I didn't mean... I didn't know she was yours..." 

Spike used the momentary lapse to break free of the hold and reach for a stake, but vampire senses took in the unmistakable scent of human sweat and fear and heard the racing heart and rush of blood in the warm body of prey. "Hey, what the hell?" The grin returned, even more baleful than before. Before Spike could bring the stake to bear, the vamp was on him again, carrying him roughly down to the pavement and knocking the wind out of him. "I don't know what's going on, but this is gonna be sweet!" Fangs drew near to his throat as Spike struggled to go to the limit of his reduced strength and break away. Black spots multiplied and swarmed before his eyes. "Payback is such a bitch," the vamp hissed in his ear. 

Spike brought his knee up hard into his opponent's groin. _Can't win a fair fight? Don't fight fair. _ The strength of his blow forced a scream from the vamp's throat and loosened his hold, and Spike took advantage to throw the hefty body off of him and scramble back to his feet. The vamp had clamoured to his knees when he suddenly shrieked like a demented teakettle. The woman stood behind him, her fingers wrapped tightly around the jackknife now buried deeply in the vampire's back. 

"Looks as though payback isn't the bitch you should be worried about," Spike managed between gasps for breath. Knowing the knife was only a momentary distraction at best, he reached for a stake. Sooner than he had expected, the vamp leapt back to his feet and forward in a rush, catching him in a bear hug that pinned Spike's arms to his sides. Fangs were once again scraping his skin before he finally managed to free his arm and plunge the stake home. 

He choked on a breath of foul ashes and stumbled back heavily against the alley wall, trying to deal with the after-effects of his body's extreme fear reaction. _I've got to establish my new limits before I get myself into a situation like this again._

Another effect of a near-death experience on a human male's physiognomy became more readily apparent as his female cohort draped herself against him. Dru had always found the reaction quite amusing in her male victims, he recalled, sometimes prolonging their deaths to see how long it would last. Determined to give him a last chance at immortality, his erection pressed painfully at the buttons of his fly. 

Looking up to gauge his response, she ran one hand down his stomach to the top button of his jeans. He bent his head to kiss her, but she drew back sharply. "Sorry sweet, no kissing. Rules of the trade. Still want this?" After a moment he nodded resignedly, and she began to slowly open his buttons. At her first touch he started, cracking the back of his head against the wall. Dazed, he couldn't tell how long it was before he spent himself helplessly at her hands, shuddering. 

He came back to himself slowly, shamed at how easily his hunger for touch - any touch - had made him give in, and began to refasten his jeans. _Maybe this is all I deserve. _ "Don't have any money," he admitted. 

"That wasn't for money; that was for thanks," she replied casually, wiping both hands with a Wet Nap she had pulled from her purse. "Let's just say I'm very glad you decided to come back when you did. But don't expect a freebie next time." She gingerly swiped at the wound in her neck as well and dropped the bloodied wipe to the pavement. "Alley," she said, holding out one hand. 

"Yes, it is," he answered, confused, as he automatically returned her gesture. 

She laughed breathlessly. "Funny man. Allie's my _name. _" 

"Ah." Comprehension dawned. "Spike," he said in return. 

"Seems appropriate," she said, bending to retrieve her knife. She paused for a moment, then shrugged and wiped it on the inner hem of her short skirt before folding it and returning it to her bag. "What the hell was that, anyway?" 

"Vampire," he answered shortly. "You're not from Sunnydale, are you?" 

"Moved here from Seattle a couple of weeks ago - mostly for the better weather," she said wryly. 

"This isn't a safe part of town, for obvious reasons," he said, stirring the dust and ash in the alleyway with the scuffed toe of one boot. "Not that there really are any." 

"This was the only place I could find where I didn't have to work for someone else. Now I know why." 

Spike picked up the stake he had dropped and reversed it in his hand to offer it to her, blunt end first. Allie hesitated, then added it to the varied stash in her purse. 

"You're taking this pretty calmly," Spike observed, surprised. Most people had yammering fits when first confronted with the concept of vampires. 

"What, you think I'm going to deny what I just saw?" she asked. 

"A lot of people do. That's the way it tends to work in Sunnydale." 

"Well just because I turn tricks for a living doesn't make me stupid." She pulled a pack of cigarettes from somewhere else deep in her voluminous bag and extracted one. For all her bravado, her hands shook as she brought it to her lips. Spike brought his Zippo up and she cupped her hands around his and drew smoke gratefully into her lungs. 

He followed suit, and they stood at the edge of the pool of light cast by the streetlamps, smoking silently in tandem for several minutes. 

"So Spike," she sighed on a stream of smoke. "You some kind of big-time vampire hunter? Like in the movies?" 

He shook his head, but didn't speak. _Used to take out wankers like that one half a dozen at a time, just for sport. Now I have trouble defending myself against one. What the hell use can I be to her now? _

"So what _do_ you do?" she persisted. 

_I don't know. I kill vampires and demons, but now I have the same problem the Slayer does - it doesn't keep body and soul together. _ "I'm... between jobs right now," he said, to put her off. 

"I was just coming from an audition for a spot as a stripper, myself," she said. "You know, get to work indoors, staff to keep the worst of the riff-raff off, meet some other girls... maybe even get something for health and dental," she envisaged optimistically, unconsciously worrying one candy-pink nail between her teeth. "It's rough being self-employed." 

"Don't suppose I ever thought about it." _Never had to. _

"Of course, you could end up working for a jerk like the manager I saw tonight. Expected regular horizontal perks just for giving me a chance. Forget that," she snorted indignantly, dropping her cigarette butt to the sidewalk and crushing it with the toe of her boot. 

"Well, I think I'm going to call it a night. I've had all the excitement I can take in one day." She hitched her purse up higher on her shoulder. "Thanks again for the help. I'll know what to watch out for next time." She looked up at him, pondering her next words. "I'm sorry I called you a cheap prick. It was a shitty night even before I met you." 

"Well, I _am_ cheap," he admitted. "Not a penny to my name at the moment." 

"But not a prick, after all. When you finally get yourself a job, Spike, come look me up," she offered. "If I'm not dancing yet, you'll find me out here somewhere." 

"Sure," he replied noncommittally. "I'll buy you a drink some time." 

"Nah, I don't hang out in bars," she said with a cheery laugh. "Do that, and the fellows think you're there to get picked up and you're actually interested in them. Then they expect it for free, or because they bought you a couple of drinks. Out here, we all know it's just a business transaction, and nobody gets confused." 

He watched her as she walked away, moving with an exaggerated hip-rolling stride as if she were certain he would be looking. Pink nails flashed as she gave him a quick wave over one shoulder before disappearing into the crowds. _Does everyone know what they're doing with their lives but me? _ he asked himself with a shake of his head. _For now, though, home sounds like enough of a plan. _

Two blocks later, Spike was again forcibly reminded of what it meant to be human, especially a human after a large meal, a long walk and some vigorous physical activity. His stomach cramped sharply and he stopped, looking at the businesses around him. An alley wouldn't do for this, oh no. _If you made me a man again to teach me humility, _ he railed at the unseen powers tormenting him, _consider the lesson learned. _ To his right, a crowded bar beckoned. _Desperados_ read the sign in flickering neon, and desperation being his current state it seemed the logical choice. At least the large crowd in the bar would offer some anonymity. 

He passed through the doorway, past the doorman's cursory inspection, and entered. It took a few minutes for his vision to adjust to the dimness inside, but when it did, it revealed a cavernous space with heavy exposed wooden beams and dark panelled walls. Almost all the available wall space was covered with photos and memorabilia related to horses and other elements of a western lifestyle: saddles, bridles, chaps, cowboy hats and much more. The floor space was even more crowded, if possible, with people: drinking, eating, dancing cheek-by-jowl on the sunken dance floor, talking - shouting, really - or just leaning at the bar waiting for another drink. 

Smoke curdled in the air, which throbbed with the low beat of a song about love and loss and pain - and pickup trucks. Spike winced. He intercepted a young woman wearing a cowboy hat and carrying a drink-laden tray. "'Scuse me, love, which way to the gents?" He couldn't make out a word of her response, but following her pointing finger, he pushed through the crowd and eventually found his way. 

He emerged relieved in more ways than one, and began to force his way through the throng back to the front door, though not so vigorously that he risked setting off the chip in his head. The close press of so many bodies made him edgy, his new vulnerabilities at the forefront of his awareness. 

"I said, let me go!" The woman's voice was audible even above the din. Dozens of heads swivelled to take in the source of the disturbance. The young man had her wrist in what had to be a painful grip. 

"C'mon Suze, you're making a scene. Let's go." 

"I told you; I wanted to spend some time with my friends. You and I will go out again on Friday." 

"But I want to be with you tonight. Doesn't that mean anything to you?" the man wheedled, pulling her closer. "I love you. Come home with me now." 

"If you love me, then you can trust me and give me some time on my own," she protested. The other two women at the table were looking around anxiously seeking support. The faces around them turned away with studied indifference as though this were something they saw every night. 

One of the woman's friends caught Spike's eyes in silent entreaty as he went past, but he shook his head. _Not my problem; I don't need to get involved here. _

The man had both the woman's wrists now and had backed her up against the table. "I know you feel the same way about me Susan - why won't you admit it?" 

"Please, Ryan, you're hurting me!" 

Conscience roared. _Walk away and you might as well be doing to Buffy all over again, _ it insisted. Spike clenched his fists until he felt the sting of bloody crescents in his palms. He could show aggression and the chip would sear his brain, or he could let the lunk batter him senseless. Either way, it would be a chance to trade mental pain for physical to expiate his offence. Spike moved forward and laid his hand on the man's arm. "When a lady says no, mate, she means no. Sooner you learn that, the better." 

Ryan looked down at him incredulously. "This is none of your business. Why don't you just get lost?" 

"I'm making it my business," said Spike, in the tone he would use in explaining matters to a simpleton. "I take exception to your tone, and I don't believe I care much for your face, either." _You remind me of soldierboy; even your name sounds the same. Just one punch; it'll be worth it. _ He slid his hand to encircle Ryan's wrist, tightening his grip just enough to warn but not enough to hurt. 

Enraged, Ryan released his hold on his girlfriend and spun, swinging his free arm around in front of him with a fist aimed at Spike's face - which suddenly wasn't there. Spike caught Ryan's fist and pulled, using the momentum of his spin to turn him right around and pull his arm up sharply behind him. _Only get the one chance. _ His other hand came down hard on the back of the man's neck and slammed him brutally into the table, scattering glassware and spilling the drinks there. Spike gritted his teeth, waiting, and felt... nothing. He almost lost his grip in surprise. 

A flash of memory surfaced: _Scarabs tickling their way up his body, their legs a thousand pricking pains as they clamoured over his skin and then inside him, crawling into his mouth and nose, invading his whole body, crawling even behind his eyes and into his brain..._ He shivered involuntarily, but the memory of revulsion soon gave way to a fierce glee. Either the chip had been destroyed in the pain of his trials, or it had never been designed to work on living human tissues. _How_didn't matter. He was free. 

His conscience, however, applied as tight a leash as the chip might have. Starting a bar brawl, however enjoyable, would hardly be an example to Buffy of how he had changed. _She'll never find out_, part of him insisted. _But_ I'd_ know_, replied another he immediately dubbed _Wanker Willie_. Spike wrestled William for control and won, for the moment. 

Ryan struggled as his hold loosened momentarily, and Spike tugged his arm a little more tightly up behind his back, holding him firmly to the table. "I suggest you behave, or I'll pull your arm from your socket. Got that?" Ryan whimpered assent, blood from his damaged nose already staining the table. _It would take a lot more force than this, but if you_ think _I can... _

Spike took him by the collar and pulled him upright while maintaining his hold on Ryan's arm. He steered him into the arms of two bouncers who had appeared out of nowhere. _Oh sure,_ now _you show up. Where the hell were you when the fun was just starting?_ They escorted Ryan to the door and none too gently pushed him out into the night. 

Spike fully expected to be next, but the hammering of fists against his back took him by surprise. He spun, astonished, to find Susan battering at him and crying. "You could have hurt him, you bastard!" she shouted, before pushing past him to go and comfort her would-be attacker. 

_I don't understand women. I will_ never _understand women_. His internal monologue was cut short by the approach of a heavyset man with all the mannerisms of officialdom. Spike braced himself for a straight-armed march to the door, resolving for the moment to not cause trouble and attract any more attention to himself. So it was yet another shock in a night filled with them when the man offered his hand instead. 

"You handled that pretty neatly," he observed. "Looking for work? I can always use another fellow to take care of things. My name's Jake, and Desperados is my place." 

The retort 'you couldn't possibly pay me enough' died unspoken on his lips. Fact was, almost anything would be enough, living rent-free in a crypt as he did - and he wasn't likely to get any better offers with a resume that listed 'former occupation: vampire'. _I need the money. _Buffy _needs money. I could help. _ "Cash. Paid daily," Spike offered. The part of him that still longed to think of itself as _big bad _howled in protest at the prospect of working here; he stifled it impatiently. 

The man fixed him with a knowing stare. "Green card troubles, huh?" 

"You might say that," Spike replied evenly. It was true as far as it went. He certainly hadn't been concerned about the niceties of immigration when he had come to this country. 

The proposal didn't seem to bother Jake. "Wednesday through Saturday, then, six 'til two. Fifty bucks a night, cash." 

He knew that as an illegal employee he wouldn't have much room to push, but he wasn't about to roll over without a fight, either. "I expect Friday and Saturday are a mite rough here. One hundred each for those two nights." It would still be a bargain for the bar, not having to worry about paperwork or the niceties of social security payments and the like. 

"Seventy-five," was the counter-offer. 

"Throw in dinner every night and it's a deal." 

"No drinks." 

As he hadn't really expected the dinner offer to fly, the limitation was hardly a hardship. "Only soda. Deal?" 

"Deal, then. See me tomorrow at five and I'll get you set up." The two men shook hands, and Jake disappeared back into the crowds. 

Spike was almost certain he'd been taken; that had been much too easy. He probably could have worked Jake up to nearly twice that amount without much protest. Still, he was determined not to complain. He had a position that would bring in more than enough money to cover his meagre expenses and let him give some to Buffy, the prospect of regular meals, and even the chance of a little sanctioned mayhem. As he built up his strength again, he could begin some regular patrols of the neighbourhood after work. Warmth spread through him, and for just a moment the clamour of voices in his memory seemed to grow a little less piercing. 

He was brought suddenly back down to earth by the shrill whine of a steel guitar as the DJ fired up another song. _Angel thinks_ he _suffers? He's got no frigging idea. _ Spike laughed, and stepped out into the night. 

-------------------   
Yes, before you ask, I'm aware of the whole 'hooker with a heart of gold' or 'Pretty Woman' stereotype, and I'm doing my best not to go that way. But Allie just walked in and took over the first half of this chapter; I was as surprised as you probably were. She's obviously got something to say, if only I can find out what it is. 


	10. Making Contact

**Making Contact **

Funny how work at the DoubleMeat Palace could wear her down in ways that slaying never had. Buffy pressed both hands to the small of her back and leaned back into them until she heard vertebrae pop, one after another. Straightening, she surveyed the still graveyard again. _Might as well call it a night. _ For whatever reason, there didn't seem to be any supernatural activity tonight, unless you counted the squirrel-sized demon she had dispatched by kicking it into a headstone - hardly her finest moment. _You'd think it was Halloween already. Or... maybe they can all smell me coming. Eau de DoubleMeat. _ She hefted her backpack into a more comfortable position on her shoulder and turned for home. 

As a matter of good Slayerly habit she surveyed her surroundings constantly on her journey home, watching for trouble, so naturally she noticed the scrap of paper wedged into her own front door the instant she turned up the walkway. She approached carefully; there was no way for her to distinguish between a local teen's prank and a bit of malicious magic. 

She stopped just short of the porch steps and hunkered down, squinting to examine the paper more carefully in the weak light of the bulb beside the door. _Buffy_ was written on the front of it in a careful, rounded, old-fashioned script so unlike her own careless scrawl. _I know that handwriting. _ Sighing, she stepped up to the front door and tugged the paper free, noticing for the first time a small box on the doorsill. Buffy unfolded the note and began reading. 

  
_Buffy, I'm sorry for being such an idiot when you came to see me the other day. I had no right to say the things I did, and I regret yet again if I caused you any pain. You deserve much better. I do accept your apology; it was graciously given - and it's more than I'm worthy of when one considers the things I've done to you and yours. I have no words deep enough to express my sorrows on that score. _

I wanted to give you a gift; I hope you can find it in you to accept it. For what it's worth, I give you my word that it's not stolen, and that it doesn't mean that I'll be hanging about watching you, either. But you know how to find me if you ever need my help. 

Buffy turned her attention from the note to the small grey velvet box. On opening it she discovered a delicate pair of earrings with hooks made from gold wire, and small emerald-cut amethysts surrounded by many tiny, clear stones that spit back coloured fire in the light of the streetlamps. _They can't be..._ She returned to the note. 

_They made me think of you - and I couldn't resist, just this once. I promise I won't do it again. _

Yours, William 

  
Buffy sighed and closed the box again. _No, not mine. I don't want a William. I don't_ need _a William in my life right now. I'm big with the 'strong independent working woman' life. Okay, so the strength is mostly physical, and the work is menial - I think I'm finally getting the hang of things. _

She let herself in the front door, locking it behind her and extinguishing the porch light. Dropping her backpack by the door and hanging her coat on the peg there, she moved assuredly through the dark house and into the kitchen. Only then did she turn on a light. 

To her pleasant surprise, she found that Dawn had actually done a decent job of cleaning up the kitchen this time. She had always found her sister to be more interested in the weird creation aspect of cooking, and much less so in the inevitable clean up required when her creations went awry. 

Buffy opened the fridge and found the plastic-wrapped plate that Dawn had left for her. Lifting the edge of the plastic wrap, she took a tentative sniff. There didn't seem to be any ingredients more exotic than curry powder this time, so she set the plate into the microwave to reheat. While she was waiting, she took the day's dishes from the rack beside the sink and replaced them in the cupboards where they belonged. _I wonder if we'll ever have enough money to get that dishwasher fixed. _ When the microwave beeped, she retrieved her plate, poured herself a glass of milk and settled in at the kitchen island. 

********** 

_She walked by herself at night in the high desert of California. The ground still radiated the day's warmth, but the wind was cool and she drew her jacket more closely about her. The stars overhead in their thousands were diamond bright. _

The fire blazed high without heat, but Tara still held out her hands before it. "Fire must have seemed like the most powerful magic when it was first discovered, don't you think?" She patted a space beside her where she sat on a stone ledge. "Come sit with me." Bemused, Buffy did as she was directed. She still couldn't feel any warmth from the fire, but Tara seemed to find it comforting. 

"Fire pushes back the night," the witch went on. "It reveals things otherwise hidden. It keeps us warm. Bring food near it and it's transformed." 

After some minutes of silent contemplation, Tara stood and walked up to the bonfire. Buffy wanted to warn her to stay back, to be careful, but couldn't seem to form the words. Tara circled the fire with graceful steps, as though she were moving to music only she could hear. "But like everything so powerful, fire has its dark side as well. If it's not tended to carefully, it consumes and destroys. Fire burns. The first people probably thought they had loosed a terrible demon into their midst, the first time fire got out of control." She reached into the fire, ignoring Buffy as she leapt to her feet in warning, and curved one hand until a tongue of flame was cupped there, still burning. 

"They say that the pain of being burned is the worst pain anyone can ever experience." She smiled sadly at Buffy through the flames. " 'Once burned, twice shy', isn't that the saying? But if no one had ever risked fire again, we'd never have moved out of the caves." 

A sound of rattling bones and Tara was gone, the fire was gone, and the stars overhead were being extinguished in great swaths as though someone were wiping them off the dome of the night sky. 

Buffy sat bolt upright in bed, awake, with only hazy memories of her dream. Tara's final words echoed in her mind. _ "Love... give... forgive. Risk the pain. It is your nature" _

She tilted her alarm clock to catch the light from the streetlights outside. Three thirty. Sighing, she collapsed back and tried to settle her mind to sleep again. _That's what I get for eating dinner just before going to bed. _

********** 

_The tunnels were utterly black, but predator's sight made the gloom seem no worse than twilight. Some part of him recognized the absurdity of the scenario, but he found he had no choice but to play along. Arrogance and self-confidence warred with the fear in his gut. Something was waiting for him. There was something he'd have to face. _

It wasn't supposed to be Tara. 

"Oi, Glinda. Thought you were supposed to be dead," he said, trying to cover his confusion. 

"You were dead for a hundred and twenty years. If it didn't stop you from walking around and talking, why should I let it stop me?" He knew there was a perfectly reasonable answer to that, but couldn't remember what it was. 

"This isn't real," he insisted. "I'm asleep and dreaming all of this." 

"Why do you doubt your senses?" 

"Wait a minute," Spike said. "This is just like Scrooge's problem, isn't it? How did it go? I don't trust my senses... 'because a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!' " He grinned like a schoolboy successfully finishing his piece on speech day. 

"You can believe that, if it makes you more comfortable," she said, and his smile vanished. "Why are you here? What are you?" 

"I don't know!" he said, agonized. "I thought I'd make myself into someone Buffy might be able to love. I wanted to help her, but I could barely even defend myself today. What good am I to her now?" 

"You were weak and afraid," she said, pointing out the embarrassingly obvious. 

"That's what I said; a snivelling wet end." His disgust with his earlier timidity was bottomless. 

"You knew you were at risk, but still you stayed." 

"I-" Why had _he done it? It was dodgy and stupid and... it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. _

"Your answers are there, Spike, you just have to learn to listen." 

Listen. 

The gloom was impenetrable to his sight; he might as well have kept his eyes closed. Clem's soft, burbling snores were the only sound Spike could detect in the darkened crypt. _Well_ that _was helpful. _ He turned onto his side and drew the sleeping bag more closely about his shoulders. _It's no wonder Dru always sounded mad when she talked about her dreams. _ He was asleep again in minutes, the dream visions fading from his consciousness. 

********** 

_The demon had a drill mounted at the end of one long arm, and it was burring into her brain..._

Her sleep-fogged mind finally identified the irritating sound as the telephone. She snatched up the receiver from the cradle before it could torment her further and mumbled into it. "H'llo?" 

"Buffy... Did I wake you?" The voice on the line was warm, cultured - and instantly recognizable. 

"No Giles, I'm always up at the mind-numbing hour of" - Buffy looked at the clock- "seven a.m.," she concluded, groggily running one hand over her face. Anything was preferable to more nightmares, even early morning calls from ex-Watchers overseas. 

He was instantly apologetic. "Oh. I'm sorry, I thought I had calculated the time difference more carefully than that. Shall I call back later?" 

"Never mind," Buffy replied, sitting up and pushing her blankets aside. "I'll have to get Dawn up in half an hour for school anyway. What's up?" 

"I wanted to let you know that Willow and I will be returning to Sunnydale a week from this coming Friday." 

"Giles, that's great!" She paused. For such good news, he certainly hadn't sounded thrilled. "It is great, isn't it?" 

"Yes... yes of course." 

Buffy could almost hear him taking off his glasses and looking pained in that uniquely British way. She jumped at the first explanation that came to mind. "Has something bad happened to Willow?" 

"No, no," he reassured her. "Physically she's fine. The dark magic has been completely removed from her system. Emotionally... this has been a very trying time for her. Perhaps I was hasty to presuppose that the coven in Devon would be able to help her deal with all of her problems." 

She refused to be reassured. "What do you mean?" 

"She's finding it difficult to deal with her grief over Tara and her remorse for her actions last spring," he explained. "I believe it would in her best interests now to return to a familiar setting and friends as soon as possible." 

"You know you'd both be welcome to stay with us, but we only have the one extra room and that's where..." Just remembering brought tears to her eyes. She'd been fighting for her own life that day until Willow had healed her and so had been spared the sight of Tara's lifeless body lying all day alone in the master bedroom, but Dawn had described everything in such terrible detail she felt as though she had been there. 

"A temporary rental on an apartment near to the university campus might be the best solution all around," he said. "I realize that classes have already begun, but she might find some relief in the familiar environment." Giles paused for a moment in thought. "I know that you have a great deal on your plate right now, Buffy, but do you think it would be possible for you to look into something for us?" 

"Unless someone's planning an apocalypse they haven't told me about, I should be able to manage," she said, determined to make Willow's return home a cheerful event. 

"That brings me to my second reason for calling. Is there something more that's happened there that I should know about?" 

Buffy racked her brain. "No, everything's been pretty normal lately - quieter than usual, even. Why?" 

"Well, it's just that the Council has informed me that Spike was seen abroad - here in London, actually. I was concerned that something big might be brewing." 

She laughed, relieved that she would be able to deal with his concerns for a change. "Giles, you'll really have to get back on the Council's good side - that news must be at least a month old. Spike's back in town." 

"Ah. I see." Irritation clearly communicated itself over the intervening miles. "I shall have to have a word or two with them. Has Spike been up to his old tricks, then?" 

_Let's see: following me around for days on patrol, starting arguments with me, sneaking around to the house leaving unsubtle presents..._ "Yeah, but nothing really out of the ordinary. Between the working, the slaying and the substitute mom stuff, I'm pretty busy; I haven't seen him that often." 

"So you've not... carried on with your relationship?" Giles asked hesitantly. 

"No Giles," Buffy sighed. "I have not gone back to sleeping with Spike, thanks for asking." _And he never tried even once to convince me to. _

"I'm sure that's for the best, then," he said reassuringly. "I had best ring off. See you soon." 

"Giles wait," she said, just as he was about to hang up. "Maybe there is something. The last time I did see Spike, he looked... sick, maybe. Is that possible?" 

"Sick? In what way? I don't know of any medical condition that could possibly affect a vampire, short of not feeding regularly. Perhaps there's some supernatural affliction..." His voice trailed off as though he were already deeply into some ponderous tome. 

"Oh, and he made some cryptic remark, too." She struggled to remember; the words hadn't made sense. "Something about a gay guy with a skin condition?" 

"What? Are you sure?" 

"Well something like that." _Think, think, think! _ "Scratchy, or... oh wait! It was 'itchy homo'. Ring any bells?" 

" 'Itchy homo'," Giles repeated carefully, confused. "Buffy... do you mean _ecce homo_?" 

"Isn't that what I said?" she asked, not hearing any difference in the two phrases. 

"Not quite, no. _Ecce homo_ is a Latin phrase that means 'behold the man'. I wonder what he meant by that?" 

"Beats me. I was already looking at him when he said it. Maybe he's just switched tactics and is trying to impress me with the size of his brain rather than his..." Buffy felt sure that Giles could see her blush clear down the line. "Back up and forget that last sentence, okay?" 

"Already gratefully forgotten," he assured her. "I'll look into the possibility of vampire sicknesses, and let you know what I've found when we arrive." 

They made their farewells, finally, and Buffy got ready to meet another day head on. 

********** 

Buffy was well into her second cup of instant coffee by the time her sister came into the kitchen. 

"Was that the phone I heard this morning?" Dawn asked sleepily as she reached into the cupboard for a box of cereal. 

"Giles," Buffy confirmed. "He and Willow will be coming back next week on Friday." 

"Cool. Wonder if he'll be bringing me anything?" Before Buffy could get herself worked up over the total inappropriateness of this question, Dawn relented. "Relax, Buff - I'm only joking. Still, I wouldn't say no to some postcards." She loaded a bowl with sugar-frosted chocolate goodness and added just enough milk to float the cereal precariously near the lip of the bowl when she picked it up and headed for the living room. Grabbing the remote, she settled with her feet under her at one corner of the couch and began power-surfing the channels. 

After a moment's delay, Buffy headed after her. "Hey! What did I say about eating in the living room? You think I have nothing better to do than vacuum cereal crumbs out of the couch?" she said in her best imitation of an overworked parental-authority-substitute voice. 

Clearly she had some work to do on her impression; Dawn ignored her in favour of studying the strobing light coming from the TV screen. _If there's ever a job that involves making decisions on the basis of subliminal images and three-second sound bites, Dawn's a shoo-in. _

_ "... so you started having threesomes with these neighbours..." _

"... Lucy! You got some 'splainin..." 

"...robbery of the blood bank at Sunnydale Memorial..." 

"...medical/dental receptionist, computer repair, teacher assistant... 

"Wait! Turn back to that last channel!" Buffy protested. 

Dawn rolled her eyes and complied, setting down the remote in favour of her spoon. 

_ "...severe shortage of blood. Police believe the theft may be gang related..." _

"Yeah. Gangs with fangs," mocked Dawn. "I can't believe anyone could be so clueless." 

"Shh!" Buffy scolded, listening intently as the 'Good Morning Sunnydale' news anchor continued. 

_ "Sunnydale residents seventeen and older and in good health are being asked to donate blood to help ease the current crisis. It is estimated that local hospitals now have less than a two-day supply of blood and blood products. All but emergency surgeries have been cancelled, and, where possible, patients are being sent home. In related news, an artificial blood substitute, long thought to be the subject of science fiction, may finally..."_

"Okay, you can turn it off now," Buffy said, lost in thought. 

"It's not exactly apocalypse number seven come calling, is it?" Dawn observed, resuming her endless survey of channels - though now mercifully muted. 

"Nooo... Still, it's probably something we should look into," her sister replied. "I wish Willow were back already; she'd have pulled up all the records of similar incidents across the state and have a theory ready to go in about five minutes." 

"I can use the computers at school-" Dawn offered, before Buffy cut her off. 

"No! I mean... I don't want you doing anything Slayer-related at school; we don't need to see round two of that trouble." She weighed the pros and cons of getting Dawn involved carefully; her sister had responded well to new responsibilities over the summer, but she didn't want her getting mixed up into more than she could handle. But without Willow, and with Xander currently obsessing over Anya and Spike... "But if you were to stop at the public library, say, on your way home..." 

"You bet. Instant anonymous computer research. Leave it to me." She dropped her spoon with a clatter into her empty bowl and stood. "Do we go donate blood?" 

"Hmm? No... probably not a good idea. I don't think there's anything that medical tests would pick up, but you and I aren't exactly of the ordinary, you know." Thinking of the special properties associated with Slayer blood perhaps inevitably brought her thoughts around to a certain vampire who had always extolled certain of its virtues. _Not that I ever let him test those theories on me. _ "I should probably go and grill Spike about the theft, too." 

Dawn frowned. "I don't think that Spike had anything to do with it." 

"Name me another vampire who has to have pre-bagged blood, and maybe I'll believe it." 

"Angel," the younger girl retorted immediately. 

Buffy sighed. "Dawn, I know that you consider Spike to be your friend, and I know he's done a lot for us, but he can't just change what he is. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't follow up on this." 

"But he-" _already_ has _changed, and I promised him I wouldn't tell you. Damn. Oh well. You'll find out soon enough. I just wish I could get to see your face when you do. _ "Guess so," she admitted. 

"Thanks for the overwhelming support," Buffy teased gently. "Shouldn't you be getting dressed about now?" 

Vampires, blood thefts and the prospect of being chief Scooby researcher vanished under the much more compelling issues of the latest in school fashion. "Hey, did you wash my blue skirt yet?" 


	11. Back in the Saddle Again

Well, it's been a long time, and all I can reward your patience with is a chapter that seems to be a bit shorter than the average. But RL's been nasty lately, and so this is what it is. Thanks for reading/reviewing.   
-------------------- 

  
**Back in the Saddle Again**

It just seemed the proper cap to the day when Clem told him that Xander had been by, looking for him. Spike didn't believe for a minute that it was to welcome him back, either - unless said welcome involved a pointy piece of wood, of course. The boy never had known when to let go. 

Soul or no, he wasn't about to apologize, either. As far as he was concerned, Harris had made it perfectly clear how he felt by walking out on his own wedding. He knew Anya had only intended him to be part of the vengeance she so desperately desired, but in the end there had been real solace and comfort on both sides. It was stupid, and careless, and oh, so very human. _It's a sorry bunch indeed when the demons are the most human of the lot. _

********** 

Xander's visit was just another reason to be glad that he would have somewhere else to be most nights, he reflected the next day as he carefully built himself a peanut butter sandwich for his lunch. He would have preferred something hot, but still had to get around to picking up a kettle... or something. _Hot equals kettle or stove equals money equals get off your ass and see if you can move some of that jewellery. _

Loading his pockets with a few of the smaller pieces, he set off to find a middle-of-the-road jewellery store. Too high end and they'd not be interested in buying from the likes of him; too much like a pawn shop and he'd be cheated out of most of their value. And not too much at once, or there might be sticky questions of provenance. Little by little, in a number of different stores was the safest bet. 

It took him several hours and three different stores downtown to find a place that met his criteria, but at least it had given him a chance to determine the selling price of comparable pieces. Spike tried not to fidget with impatience while the jeweller closely examined what he had brought. Finally, he named a figure that seemed reasonable enough, and Spike was hard pressed to not let his elation show. He agreed quickly. 

"I'll write you a cheque for these three, then." 

"Uh..." How to explain the lack of a bank account to accept a cheque? "I don't... I've only just moved here and haven't had a chance to set up anything with the bank yet." 

"I see. Well I certainly can't offer you cash; we don't keep that amount on the premises." He frowned, deep in thought. 

Entire scenarios of being carted off to jail for an attempt to pawn stolen goods flashed through Spike's mind during that pause. Then some obscure California vagrancy law would surely keep him locked up and he'd never be able to help Buffy and Dawn. "What if you write a cheque to a friend of mine who can cash it for me, and just give me a few hundred?" he suggested, hoping this wouldn't raise suspicions. 

To his overwhelming relief, the jeweller agreed, and Spike walked out of the shop with a pocketful of cash and a substantial cheque made out to 'Buffy Summers'. _ It's amazing how much more trusting people are in the daylight. Next stop, a sporting goods store. _

********** 

Before setting out from the crypt again, he extracted a solemn oath from Clem that he would not blow the place up trying to set up the propane stove. Leaving his friend behind to ponder the mystery that was modern camping equipment, he set out at a brisk pace across town to Desperados. 

Twenty minutes later, he was back on Roosevelt Boulevard. Seen in the daylight, the street was dingy and shopworn, a slattern the morning after. He thought it would take night and neon to make the thoroughfare even marginally appealing, but his opinion was apparently in the minority - after work crowds had already begun to swell the numbers strolling the sidewalks. 

Spike slowed as he came closer to the bar. He had almost convinced himself during his walk that the entire offer had been false, a sham to get a troublemaker out the door. He'd get there, and everyone would say 'Jake? Never heard of him'. He was a right fool, to be sure. His reluctant feet brought him to a halt across the street. 

Ten minutes later he was still standing there, unable to convince himself to walk into Desperados and be proved right, when he was hailed by a familiar voice. "Waiting for me, sweet? I'm sure I should be flattered." Spike turned to see Allie waving from the window of a cab that had pulled up at the corner, and an idea stepped full-formed into the front of his mind. He stepped forward to hold open the door for her. 

Allie climbed out and stood in front of him, looking him critically up and down. "You've come into some money, I take it," she said. "So... same as yesterday? Or would you like to go some place a little more private this time?" She hooked one arm through his and moulded herself to him. 

"Actually," he said, gently disentangling himself, "I thought I'd buy you dinner." 

She looked up at him and cocked her head to one side, confused. "If you're sure that's what you want to pay for, sweet," she replied after a moment's thought. She took his arm again when he offered it and they crossed the street together, and stashed the money he handed her without comment as they entered the bar. 

********** 

Between the two of them they had done serious hurt to a large plate of nachos. By the time their steak sandwiches arrived there was still no sign of Jake, and Spike wasn't sure whether he was relieved or disappointed. 

"One hundred and twenty years," Allie said again incredulously after the server had left the table. "That's pretty hard to believe." 

"One hundred twenty two, if you want to be particular about it," he corrected. "And how is it any more difficult to accept than what happened yesterday? You didn't turn a hair when you found out that vampires actually exist." 

"Well... everyone more or less knows how vampires are... sired," she looked at him to make sure she had chosen the right word, and he nodded. "You know, from movies and all. But _former_ vampires? I didn't think there was a... a cure for that." She took another long pull at her beer before continuing. "It sounds like the kind of life where you could just up and take anything that you wanted. Why would you choose to give that up?" 

"It wasn't exactly what I had intended," he admitted, his eyes losing focus as memories played out before him. "Ever fall in love?" 

He hadn't expected her to laugh quite so hard, or so long. 

"Ah, Spike," she managed at last between gasps. "Sweet, I'm sorry." She wiped her eyes and tried to compose herself again. "It's just that you don't strike me as the type who would be such a fool for love." 

Spike managed a rueful smile. "You'd think I would have learned better in more than a century." He lifted his beer bottle to click against hers before taking a lengthy swallow. _You'd think I was in love with the pain. _

"That was the _first_ thing I learned," Allie said. "Love's just asking to get hurt." She attacked her steak sandwich as though it were the one who had broken her heart. 

********** 

"There you are," boomed a voice behind him. "I thought I must have missed you. The wife had me off on some errand to find a climbing whatsit for her garden." Jake offered his hand, and Spike let it engulf his own. "I didn't catch your name last night." 

"Spike." 

Jake looked speculatively at Allie, but when she remained silent and Spike didn't bother to introduce her, he only shrugged. "Let's get you set up then, Spike." 

Allie waggled her fingers at him in farewell. "See you around, hon. Thanks for dinner." She headed for the door without a single look back. 

Jake led him through a door behind the bar and into a small staff lounge that seemed to double as his office. After scrabbling for some time through a cabinet, he tossed a tee shirt Spike's way. "Doesn't really matter what else you wear, so long as you've got that on," he instructed. "Cowboy hat's optional, if you want. Put that on and I'll give you the five dollar tour." 

Spike held up the shirt to inspect it. Centred on the chest was a large oval bearing the Desperados logo surrounded by a lasso, with a horned steer skull cheerily positioned to one side. _Not even _ close_ to being on the far side of good taste. _ He sighed, and shrugged out of his own to don the disagreeable shirt. _ I'll do it for her. But I am_ not _walking home in this. _

Leading him back out onto the floor, Jake began a string of introductions that Spike worked diligently to commit to memory. Jake seemed to know every one of his staff, even the casual employees, on some personal level, and they in turn appeared to honestly admire the big man. They met bartenders, servers and even the cooks and dishwashers back in the kitchen when Jake hauled him back through there. They finished up back at the front door, where Jake introduced him one last time. 

"Corey here will give you the finer points, but basically it's card anyone who looks too young, collect the cover on weekends, and turn away anyone who looks like they've already had enough. You and the other guys can decide how you want to rotate between the door and the floor the rest of the night, okay? See me at the end of the night to collect your pay." With a final hearty smack to Spike's shoulder that almost made him wince, Jake departed back to the office and whatever managerial duties he'd assigned to himself. 

The rest of the night passed quickly enough, with only a few minor incidents. Spike took his turn at several positions throughout the cavernous bar as his shift wore on, and was pleasantly surprised at how quickly he was accepted by the other staff members. 

He spent no little time observing the bar from a vampire's point of view and came up with several ideas that would serve to discourage his former kin, or at least make them easier to spot, including a way to install a security mirror that would let someone surreptitiously survey the entrance. He presented his thoughts to Jake in his office at the end of the shift - without going into the _real_reasons behind them, of course - and was pleased when he appeared to take them quite seriously. 

"I think that mirror's a hell of an idea, Spike," he said as he counted out Spike's pay for the night in faded bills that reeked of beer. "You keep coming to me with anything you come up with, hear? I may not go for all of it, but I always want to know what my people think." 

Spike hung his Desperados shirt on a hook in the break room - now labelled with his name on a strip of masking tape - and slipped back into his own and his jacket. The unfamiliar feel of a large wad of cash in his pocket was exhilarating. 

_I've a fat stack of folding in my pocket now, and a place where I'm welcome - and even appreciated. When I see Dawn I'll find out if there's a way to deposit that cheque without Buffy finding out. Might be worth sticking around for a while after all._


	12. Pennies From Heaven

**Pennies from Heaven**

Dawn waited all week to see what Buffy's reaction would be when she discovered Spike had been transformed, but without luck. Whatever their mutual schedules, they seemed always to prevent a casual encounter. Of course, this only served to increase Buffy's suspicion about his activities. She claimed that only the fact that she was overwhelmed with work and now the added task of finding a place for Willow and Giles before they returned kept her from setting up a vigil in his crypt to catch him unawares. 

To herself, Dawn thought that her sister was simply reluctant to encounter him again and was trying to fool herself with these excuses. _Not that I can really blame her, I suppose. Even if she was never in any real _physical_ danger, he still hurt her badly. _ She sighed, and settled more deeply into the couch with her mother's old copy of _The Joy of Cooking_, waiting for the object of her thoughts to appear for his first lesson - and hers. _Funny how I never thought of him as dangerous, even when I first met him. I think we all got used to him hanging around, mooning over Buffy and helping out just for the fun of beating things up. We all forgot that he was still a vampire underneath it all. All of us except Xander, that is. Combine that with a crush on Buffy that isn't anywhere_ near _as secret as he thinks it is, and I see why he was so eager to tell me that Spike had tried to rape her. We're all just fumbling along trying to do what we think is best - sometimes I wonder how we manage to communicate at all. Look at me, before Dr. Chambers turned me on to that psychology course. _

_But if any of them had any idea of how much pain he's in now over everything he's done..._ She exhaled heavily. _ Some of them still wouldn't care. So I'll be his friend, because it's now that he really needs one. _

She slipped one last bookmark into a recipe she thought might be easy enough for Spike to start with, and set the book down on the table, exchanging it in favour of some of the research notes that she had made on the blood theft from the hospital. She had found several instances of blood shortages across the southern part of the state. A company called Incruentus was said to be gearing up for emergency production of their artificial blood substitute to temporarily take up some of the demand, and as a result their stock price was soaring. Medical technology stocks had always been one of the darlings of the market, but the crisis was driving _Incruentus_ into realms previously only occupied by dot-coms. A sharp knock on the front door dislodged a niggling thought and sent it skittering off lost into the back of her brain. Dawn got up to let Spike in. 

"Afternoon, Platelet," he said affably as he entered. 

"Y'know, Spike," she said, "You really might want to rethink the whole vampire nickname thing... because it _so_ doesn't suit you any more." 

He blinked owlishly. "Ah. Never thought of that... Dawnie, then." 

"If that's the best you can do," she said sternly, "you'll have to stick with 'Platelet'. I hate being called Dawnie." _ Only Tara could really get away with it. _ She swallowed hard against the sudden lump in her throat, forcing her thoughts back to matters at hand. "Come on back to the kitchen, I've got some recipes for you to look at." 

********** 

Dawn surveyed their results with a critical eye. "I dunno... it doesn't really look like the picture, does it?" 

"I told you we should have stirred it more, Bit. Maybe it will look better if we let it cook a while longer." He shrugged. "I thought it tasted okay." 

"Yeah, if your favourite snack for the last hundred years has been O negative, it probably tastes great," she retorted. "We'll give it another half hour. Now, how about we make with some of those cool martial arts moves that all you vampires seem to know? Uh - I mean ex-vamp... oh, you know." 

"How about we eat first, then fight? I'll need all my energy to keep you from doing me hurt," he smiled. He was having more than a little trouble reclassifying himself, too. 

"No way. If we do that, you'll just end up getting all sleepy in front of the TV like my dad always used to do after dinner. Teach me now, eat later." Her eyes twinkled. "I've got ice cream for dessert, after." 

"Right then. After you." Spike swept her a courtly bow and directed her out the kitchen door to the back yard. 

********** 

"I don't know what hurts more," Dawn complained much later. "My arms or my stomach." She lay back into the couch cushions and pressed her hands to her swollen midriff. 

"There's no one to blame for your stomach but you," Spike replied from where he sprawled at the other end of the sofa. "I think you ate more than I did. And I _ did_ warn you about trying to break that hold." 

She tilted her head forward until she could see him again. "You know, Buffy's got afternoon shifts all this week. You could come over for a while before you have to go to work." 

"And let you get a chance at a rematch?" 

"Well, yeah. That was kind of the idea. How about tomorrow and Thursday? - oh, but not Friday. We have to pick up Giles and Willow from the airport." 

A band tightened painfully around Spike's heart. "So the prodigal's back, is she?" _ And welcomed with open arms, like as not. _ "Hugs and puppies all around?" _ Quit your whining, you git. You've already received more than you deserve. _

"Buffy said that Giles said..." --he couldn't help but smile at how much like school gossip she made it sound--"that the magic was gone, but that Willow was still having trouble dealing with the guilt over killing Rack and Warren." 

_ Oh, I know that song. _ "Just give her time, Bit. She'll come back eventually." _ Though it might take years. _

Dawn's face clouded. "I don't know if I want to. She tried to kill me too - turn me back into mystical glowy Key energy." 

"It's not like I didn't try, back in the day," Spike observed. "Yet here I am. You don't hold it against _ me_." 

"I know. It's still just... different, somehow. It doesn't make any sense, really - but with you it just never seemed... personal, you know? Maybe it's because we only have the memories, but it never _ really happened_. Seeing as how I only met you two years ago." 

"But it's what I would have done." 

"Don't beat yourself up about it." She sighed and let her head fall back to the cushions. "Forget it. I don't have the strength left to analyze either one of us tonight." 

He willingly let the subject drop, but had to venture the question he'd been wanting to ask all night. "Dawn? Would you give me some information about Buffy, if I asked? It's nothing personal," he added quickly, afraid she might misunderstand his motive. 

She eyed him warily. "I suppose that would depend on what you want to know." 

"Well, I've..." Suddenly he didn't know how to begin, and started over. "Since I've been working, I've put away a bit of cash, and I thought... I don't really need all that much to keep me, and..." _ Why is this so bloody difficult? _ "I'd like to give it to the two of you. Can you tell me where she banks and give me the account number so I can go deposit it?" 

Dawn was silent for so long that he was afraid she was going to refuse him. "You can't just give it to her? No, I suppose she'd be all weird about it," she said, answering her own question. "I don't suppose there's anything wrong with letting you know." She went to the writing desk by the wall and rummaged through bank statements from the previous months, finally copying the necessary information onto a slip of writing paper that she handed to him. 

"Here you go. Maybe I can get you to do something for me in exchange." 

"Anything Buffy wouldn't end up having to kill me for, Niblet, you know I'll try to do for you," he said as he got to his feet again. 

"You've probably heard about the blood theft from the hospital." He nodded, and she continued. "Can you ask around and see what's being said about it?" 

"I'll do what I can," he promised. "Ear to the ground, like - though I don't think my new associates have quite the same connections as the old ones did." 

"Any information would help." She followed him to the front door and held it when he opened it. "Same time tomorrow, then?" 

"I'll be here." 


	13. The Prodigal

Your patience and support is beyond all rational understanding, really. I've had a terrible couple of months - my mother died in September and I took a week off of work to deal with the consequences of that. And I've felt, ever since then, that I've been playing catch up in a race that started weeks before I got there. I've hardly been able to write at all. 

I know some of you are waiting desperately for the chapter where Buffy finds out what has happened to Spike. I promise, it's already written and it's up next. Just a bit of tweaking from dear **Sundown**, and I should have it for you next week. 

But the ride is longer and more painful than I thought.   
---------------------- 

  
**The Prodigal**

Xander couldn't keep still; he paced up and down the row of seats at the arrival concourse. 

"Give it a rest, Xander," Dawn teased from where she sat. "You'll wear out the carpeting." 

"I can't help it," he insisted. "She's coming back. Willow's coming home and we can finally get back to the way things are supposed to be." 

"Giles warned us that she was still recovering," Buffy reminded him, not wanting his expectations to make him too optimistic. "It might be some time before we see normal again." 

"Whatever it takes," he maintained. "Guys, it's _Willow_!" He looked at his watch, then impatiently at the arrival board again. "Where are they? Their flight landed nearly half an hour ago." He threw himself into a chair that protested this cavalier treatment. 

"Don't forget that they still have to clear customs," Dawn pointed out. "And maybe Giles is bringing in some strange magical stuff and they're both being searched." Her eyes lit with some glee at the prospect. 

Minutes later, the doors to the customs and immigration arrivals area swung open and passengers began to emerge. Xander started up every time he saw a red-headed woman emerge, but none of them proved to be Willow. The original rush of passengers slowed to a stream, and then to a trickle, and there was still no sign of Willow and Giles. The three of them had almost given up hope when the doors opened once more and a thin, pale, auburn-haired woman emerged, clinging intently to the arm of the older leather-jacket-clad man beside her. 

"Oh my god," Buffy breathed. "Is that _Giles? _ And if it is, then is that--" 

"_Willow_," Xander finished for her, and rushed forward to embrace his oldest friend. 

Willow stiffened at first, but released Giles's arm and returned Xander's embrace. 

"It's so good to have you home again, Will," he said when he was finally willing to release her. 

She ducked her head. "It's good to be home again." When she raised her eyes again, she looked over at Buffy and Dawn who were standing apart from the rest of them, and her face pinched as if she were tasting something unpleasant that she'd been told was good for her. "Buffy... Dawn... I'm so sorry for everything." And then, suddenly and shockingly, she burst into gulping sobs. 

********** 

The drive home in Xander's car was completed mostly in silence, and Buffy cast regular anxious glances from the front seat. Dawn had offered to ride the hump in the centre seat, but Willow had insisted on being next to Giles and so sat with her legs uncomfortably folded up in front of her. She leaned onto his shoulder and kept her eyes closed. 

Willow emerged somewhat from her weariness when they pulled up at the Summers home. Every tree at the house on Revello Drive had been swathed with yellow ribbons, tied in bows and draped between boughs. On the porch, like a pair of citron sentinels, stood two yellow balloons shaped like crayons. 

"The crayons were my idea," Xander explained proudly, which drew the first unforced smile from Willow since she had returned. "I made the sign, too," he bragged, as they opened the door to reveal a large banner bearing the message 'Welcome home Willow'. They set to the business of sorting out coats and luggage in the foyer. 

"No everyone just get comfortable," Dawn commanded. "Dinner should be ready in half an hour." With that announcement, she marched off into the kitchen. 

"Is that... really a wise idea?" Giles asked Buffy in a low voice when Dawn had left. "I've heard tales of some of her creations." 

"Actually, she's improved a lot," Buffy replied. "It seems I'm always getting evening shifts, so she's been making dinners for most of the summer. We've only had one or two tragic food mishaps." 

"Yeah, like that incident with the noodles," Xander added as he took a seat on the couch. 

"I heard that!" Dawn shouted back from the kitchen. "That had nothing to do with me - it's not my fault we had a defective colander." 

********** 

By unspoken agreement, they kept the conversation during dinner to lighter subjects. Xander took up most of the main course with a description of his meteoric rise to a position of some real authority in his construction firm, and Willow and the others made appropriately appreciative noises. 

While she had never doubted her friend's talent and would never have for a moment begrudged him his success, Buffy wondered to herself if his advancement weren't equally due to the fact that Sunnydale suffered from a greater than usual amount of 'environmental damage', and the tendency of skilled workers to vanish under questionable circumstances. Still, she kept these thoughts from her face and she in turn regaled the others with stories of the peculiarities of her DoubleMeat co-workers. But it wasn't until Dawn began to describe some of her classes at the rebuilt high school that Willow had begun to tentatively respond with advice for the young scholar. 

_I should have known that was what it would take to bring her out, _ Buffy reflected. _Even more than the magic, academics were always what Willow loved best. _

As if sensing the change in mood at the table, even Giles finally relaxed his wariness somewhat and began to spin tales of his native land. Buffy finally began to realize just how much he had ached for his home for all his years in Sunnydale doing his duty, and let slip away the last lingering resentment over his departure last year. By the time dessert was on the table, it was almost as though the events of the previous year had never occurred. 

Almost. Buffy sometimes thought that if she turned around just so, she would see Tara again, moving with quiet grace, and she wondered just how much more difficult it must be for Willow to be back in this house again. She got up and began to help Dawn with the task of clearing the table, leaving Xander to try and find a way to reconnect with the friend he had almost lost and had brought back from the brink of despair. 

Dawn was filling the sink and gradually loading dishes into the waiting bubbles. She handed Buffy the drying cloth with a grateful look. "You know, I'm sure we have enough money saved by now to get someone in to look at the dishwasher," she said. 

Buffy smiled. "Maybe. On the other hand, I don't get to spend enough time with you as it is. Look at this as an opportunity." 

Dawn rolled her eyes. "This wasn't what I had in mind when I made that complaint. I was thinking about something in a more mall-like setting." 

Her sister whacked her playfully with the cloth. "Keep dreaming." 

********** 

Buffy left Dawn to put away the dishes and returned to the dining room, where Willow had finally relaxed enough to laugh at Xander's jokes. She turned as Buffy came in. "That didn't take long." 

"Yeah, we've become an unstoppable force in the kitchen," Buffy joked. "No dishes dare stand against us." She pulled out her chair and sat down again. "There's nothing like the DoubleMeat sanitation video to improve your efficiency." 

"From the sounds of things, it might almost be preferable to have demons attacking the restaurant again," Willow said. "Your abilities are wasted there - and I don't just mean the mystical ones. You shouldn't have to put such limits on yourself, Buffy. When you've got powers that most people--" 

Her face abruptly lost all colour and twisted with pain. She clutched at her stomach and pushed away from the table all in one desperate motion, and then she was pounding up the stairs almost before her chair had clattered to rest on the hardwood floor. Buffy and Xander stared incredulously after her, and heard the bathroom door slam upstairs. Dawn came into the doorway, a forgotten pot dangling from one hand. "What's going on?" 

It was a few confused moments before Buffy noticed that Giles showed no surprise at all at Willow's behaviour. A terrible, awful suspicion sank sharp claws into her gut and she turned to confront him. 

"What the hell have you done to her?" Not her mentor anymore. He was still a trusted friend, but one whose authority was no longer even the slight hold on her that it had once been. Now that he was setting himself in opposition, outside the pale in a place where she believed him to be very wrong, she wasn't afraid to challenge him. 

Long minutes passed. "It's very complicated," he began at last. 

"Try me," she snapped impatiently. "You'll find I understand a lot more than anyone ever gave me credit for." 

Giles removed his glasses and rubbed his face wearily. For a moment, Buffy's heart ached at the old, familiar gesture, but she quashed the emotion ruthlessly. 

"Well?" 

"We couldn't remove the magic," he confessed when he had himself under control again. "It had become too ingrained into her own life force, become a reflex action. Removing it would have been tantamount to killing her. So instead we... walled it off. Blocked her access to it while leaving it to sustain her life. Any attempt to directly control it causes her pain. It's a sort of _geas_, you could say. And it was decided to make me the key to it." 

Buffy wasn't going to confess she didn't know the word; she'd get a definition later. His meaning was clear enough. "You're controlling her mind?" 

"Who the hell gave you the right?" Xander demanded, surging up from the table as though about to swing on him. 

"I did," Willow said quietly from the bottom of the stairs, her face pale but composed, and Xander collapsed back into his chair. "I knew I might never be able to control it, and I... I don't want to be dead." Even after all her years on the Hellmouth, Buffy thought the most disturbing thing she had ever seen was the sudden flood of tears down Willow's face while her friend went on speaking, unaware, her face untouched by any emotion. "Maybe someday I'll be strong enough, but for now this is what has to be done to me." She turned her attention back to Giles. "Rupert, get us a cab. We need to go." 

"You're leaving?" Dawn protested. "I thought that you and I might bake some cookies together later. You know so many good recipes." _I just want to make you feel better, somehow. _ "Remember how you said that baking... relieves inner turmoil?" she offered tentatively. 

The sudden naked anguish on Willow's face drove them all back a step. "You think that _baking cookies_ is going to make things all right again? I watched Tara die in front of me and tasted her blood on my face. I killed two men in the most horrible ways I could imagine because I thought that no one could possibly suffer as much as I had in that moment!" Her voice rose in shrieking crescendo. "I thought it was better to end the entire world than to go on feeling pain like that and you want me to bake fucking _cookies_?" Willow spun and fled the house for the relative sanctuary of the front porch, slamming the door behind her. 

"I just thought it would be fun," Dawn said in a child's small voice, and crumpled in tears into Xander's embrace. Buffy moved closer to encircle the two of them with her arms. The sound of Dawn's sobs and Giles's quiet voice on the phone summoning a taxi were the only noises in the house for some time. 

"There's no need to disturb yourselves further on our account," Giles said as he gathered their things in the foyer. "We'll wait outside for the cab." 


	14. Revelation

**Revelation**

"She hates me." 

Buffy turned from her work in time to see Dawn fling herself into the couch, resulting in a squeal of springs. She dumped her backpack unceremoniously on the floor beside her. 

"Who, the couch? Sounds like it, from the way you're treating it. Be careful, because we can't afford a new one." 

"We can't afford anything," Dawn grumbled, momentarily distracted, but she returned quickly enough to her complaint. "No, I meant Willow. Willow hates me." 

Buffy sighed, and put down the bank statement she'd been trying to reconcile for the past hour. "Well of course she doesn't, Dawn," she said, getting up and moving to sit beside her on the couch. 

"She must," Dawn insisted. "When I went to see her last week about the blood bank thefts, she could barely even pretend to be interested. And this afternoon I stopped by because I though she could help me with my advanced algebra... Buffy, she wouldn't even see me! She made Giles come tell me that she was too busy with her own work to do trivial problems." She drew her feet up onto the couch and rested her head despondently on her knees. "It's because of what I said about the cookies, I just know it. How was I supposed to know she'd take it the way she did?" 

Buffy slipped a supportive arm around Dawn's shoulders and her sister leaned against her heavily. "Willow's still grieving for Tara, honey," she said gently. "When people are in pain, they sometimes say things they don't really mean. You and I have both done the same thing; it doesn't mean we don't love each other - in fact it probably means just the opposite, since we know how to be the most devastating." When this didn't get a response, Buffy just held Dawn close until she felt her begin to relax in her arms. 

"Does this mean I'm trespassing in your territory?" Buffy asked gently. "Because aren't you the one who's supposed to be 'insightful girl'?" 

Dawn smiled weakly back at her. "Yeah, well... I don't want to make you feel like I don't need you at all anymore," she said. 

"I appreciate the thought," Buffy replied, getting up from the couch. "But you know, you're welcome to make me feel unnecessary in other ways," she said, going back to the desk and indicating the pile of bank documents there. 

"No way," Dawn laughed openly now. "That's all yours, I've got my own math homework to do. And speaking of... I'm going to get some of it out of the way since it will probably take me most of the weekend without expert help." 

"Gee, thanks," Buffy said wryly. "Last one done has to cook," she challenged. 

"You're on." 

********** 

Dawn took her time going through the first few pages of her algebra; it wasn't really to her advantage to finish before Buffy did, because doing so would mean she would have to eat her sister's cooking again. A knock on her bedroom door drew her out of her alphanumeric reverie. 

"Okay if I come in?" 

"Sure. Does this mean I lost the bet?" she asked hopefully as Buffy opened the door. 

"Dawn, what is this?" Buffy asked, holding up the bank statement that looked to have at least three distinct colours of highlighter on it. Her face was drawn and pale. 

Something about the diamond hardness in her sister's eyes made Dawn choke back the first response that came to mind - _that's a bank statement, dummy_. Buffy didn't look like she was in the mood for joking around. "I don't get what you're asking," she said, instead. 

"Look at this," Buffy said, placing the sheets carefully and deliberately on the desk. "I can account for everything we have to pay out. Here's the mortgage, the water and sewer bill, and the electricity." She indicated several highlighted items. "Here's the cheque for groceries, and another one for your Phys. Ed. fee - late, of course." She grimaced. "Among other things. 

"And here's the income." A much smaller number of items were highlighted in another shade. "Dad's support payments for you - thank god for automatic withdrawals and deposits. These are my paycheques. So what are those?" One accusing lavender fingernail pointed at three items marked in bright pink. 

Dawn's mind stuttered. _That must be the money Spike put in. I can't tell her that, can I? What_ do _I tell her then? And how the hell does she keep her nails looking like she's just had a manicure when I_ know _she was out slaying all last night - and mine always look like I had them for lunch?_ "I... don't know." 

"You don't know," Buffy repeated, her voice chill. "Like you didn't know last year how all those items from the Magic Box got into your room. Or why the stores kept forgetting to take security tags off of merchandise." 

_Ooh, wrong answer. _

Buffy looked at Dawn, and her voice and resolve broke. "Oh Dawnie, I know it's hard living like this, barely making it from month to month. But you can't keep stealing stuff just so we have money for treats. Please, you have to understand I'm doing the best that I can..." 

Dawn didn't answer, and could only watch as her sister's face fell, her hopeful look gradually replaced with tired anger. "Buffy, I... I don't know what to tell you," she managed at last. 

"Maybe some time at home will help you decide," Buffy said, in a cold, flat tone. "You're grounded until I get to the bottom of this." She turned away and closed the door carefully behind her with a click that was more deafening than the loudest slam could have been. 

Dawn leaned her face into her hands at her desk. _I have to see Spike, but of course crypts don't have phones. Why couldn't he get an apartment like a regular guy? God, I hope he keeps our scheduled time on Monday, because we can't go on this way -_ they _can't. He's_ got _to talk to her. _


	15. Reconciliation

Okay, so I lied about how this one was the very next one; at least I didn't make you wait. *g*   
-------------------- 

  
**Reconciliation**

Buffy didn't particularly care for her job, but she had become resigned to it for the sake of the necessary money it brought in. She would perform all of her duties with good grace and the best cheer she could muster, but every day there was one thing that still could push her to the point where she would swear she had to quit and find something better. Today, taking the used fryer oil and salvaged grease from the grill out to the recycling container behind the restaurant was the one thing. Slayer strength made the task of transporting the bucket easy enough, but the recycling container had clearly been designed by a committee that had never intended to get its hands dirty testing it. The opening for the waste was inconveniently high, and not really wide enough to handle the flow. As a result she ended up with stains all down one side of her uniform where it had spilled, and oil in her hair. _Great. The DoubleMeat hot oil treatment. This day just can't get any worse. I really need to get out of here and kill something tonight. _

There was a large convex mirror mounted on the wall in the back lane so that the staffers at the drive-through window could see cars waiting at the order board. Movement in it caught her eye. A lone figure with blonde-tipped hair and dark clothing was making his way up the alley. _Note to self: never, _ ever, _ even_ think _the words 'it can't get any worse'. No matter what I said to Xander about having forgiven him, I still can't deal with having to talk to Sp-- _

Her head snapped around to stare down the alley as her brain presented her with two irrefutable facts: she had seen him coming in the mirror, and the sun hadn't yet set. _Okay, the Gem of Amarra could protect him from sunlight, but Angel destroyed it. Could there have been another?_ She turned back to the mirror in time to catch his wave, just a spread of the fingers of one hand in front of his chest, acknowledging that he'd been seen. _But nothing can make a vampire visible in a mirror..._

"Hello cutie," he said with an ironic smile as she spun to face him. 

She could feel her lips moving, but no sound was coming out. That explained things: she'd been sucked into some crazy alternate dimension where vampires reflected, but that didn't have an audio track. The grease bucket dropped from her nerveless fingers and clattered loudly on the alley pavement, dispelling her wild notion. 

Buffy didn't resist when Spike took her hand in his and pressed it to his cheek. His skin was as soft as she remembered, but warm now - so warm. Beard stubble pricked at her fingertips. He closed his eyes, his dark lashes beaded with unshed tears, and turned his head to place a gentle kiss in her palm. He slowly drew her hand down to his chest, pressing so that her fingers splayed firmly against him and she couldn't fail to feel the living heat of his flesh or the _thud-thud-thud_ of his pounding heart. "I told you I could change," he said softly, opening his eyes again to look deeply into hers. 

She stumbled back, pulling her hand away and cradling it in the other as though it had been enchanted somehow, its senses unreliable. All that kept her upright was the wall of the alley, and she leaned back heavily against it. "How?" she asked in a breathless whisper. "Why?" 

"_How_ was an accident," he replied wryly. "And as for _why_..." Spike took a deep breath. He stepped forward to reach for her but she shrank back, the fabric of her uniform scraping roughly over the bricks. He stopped and thrust his hands into his pockets, suddenly finding his boots immensely interesting. "I couldn't stand the thought of what I'd done to you. If the chip wouldn't keep me from hurting you, then I had to find something that would. And I suppose... I wanted to be someone that you wouldn't have to be ashamed of any more. So I went looking to win back my soul." 

He stood motionless for some time before her with his eyes downcast until she replied shakily: "It seems you ended up with quite a bit more than you had bargained for." 

He took his hands from his pockets to wipe his eyes and looked up at her again. "Joke's definitely on me this time, hey? Don't know why I should have been surprised; my plans always _gang agley_ more oft than not." 

His meaning was clear from the context though the words were nonsense to her. "But how... how is it possible that a vampire could even _want_ to have his soul returned? I would have thought all of you were big with the 'no conscience, no remorse' deal." 

"Because I love you," he said, as matter-of-factly as though there could be no other reason in his world for anything he would ever do. "Because you're worth that much to me. You say you can't love me - and I know that you don't," he said, before she could protest. "But you asked. That's my answer. I know it wasn't normal, but I wasn't ever really normal about love, even casting aside the whole 'creature-of-the-night' aspect. I've always been love's bitch, and I don't bloody well care." 

Buffy wrapped her arms around herself, her thoughts reeling. "Why are you here today, telling me this? Why _now_? Why didn't you tell me when I first saw you that night in the graveyard?" 

He sighed. "I was going to stay away from you, because the sodding irony of finally having a soul is that now I know how much better you deserve than me. I didn't want you to think I was just trying some new trick to win you back. But then Dawn said that you had found out about the money I'd been putting into your account, and had accused her of messing about again." Buffy started guiltily. "Just rank ignorance on my part, pet," he confessed. "I don't know a whit about bookkeeping. I had no idea you'd find out so quickly." 

"But..." Buffy was beginning to hate the whiny sound of her voice, and the way she didn't seem to know any word but _why_. He knew what she meant, though. He always knew. 

"Because I hurt you, and I'm sorry. To the end of my days I'll be sorry. I would give my life - again - to be able to take back that one day. Or ten minutes of that day. Or only the few seconds where I decided that forcing myself on you would make you want me again." He looked into her eyes, accepting his burden of guilt. "But I can't. I can't go back and change the past, and I know that sorrys can't ever be enough. All I can do now is go on, and try to be better than I was. 

"This is part of it. You need the money; I'm not taking it back. If you don't want to spend it because it's from me, that's fine. Put it into a college fund for Dawn, or buy her an extravagant Christmas present or something. But I give you my word it's my money, honestly earned." 

"What would _you_ know about honest work?" Buffy cringed inwardly at the cynical tone she heard in her voice, but couldn't stop herself. 

His smile was sad, acknowledging her censure. "Same as you've learned, pet. You do what you have to do - no matter how menial - and you do the best job of it you can, so you can take care of the people you love." 

Her breath caught in her throat, but she was saved from having to reply by the sudden awareness of just how long she'd been outside. "Oh god, my job. They've probably added my name to the disappeared list and given my locker away by now. I have to go," she said, bending to retrieve the bucket before hurrying over to the kitchen entrance. 

"Goodbye, Buffy," Spike said. "I'll not bother you here again." He began to walk back down the alley the way he had come. 

She hesitated at the door. _He's changed so much - because of me. _ "Sp-- William?" she called, and he turned back to her. "I can't love you, but... I can forgive you. I do." 

Peace blanketed him; his shoulders settled under the weight of the gift she had just given him. The image of her in the doorway blurred and threatened to run down his face. 

"And... I do care. I can't ever have too many friends who care about me as well." Her voice faltered, and she looked away. "If you want... I could use some help patrolling after work tonight. If you don't have... other plans." 

His answering smile outdid the sun for brightness. "I'll be here." 

********** 

True to his word, he was at the door waiting as she locked up at the end of her shift. He held her backpack while she wrestled the heavy door closed and manipulated the code lock. 

"I thought we might head to Restfield tonight," she said, as she accepted the pack again. "I haven't done a sweep through there as recently as I should have." 

"Whatever you think is best, pet - love - ah, Buffy." He grimaced. "Sorry." 

"It's all right, I don't really mind that much. I know it's mostly just a habit. Though _pet_ always makes me think of someone's dog." She smiled, and looked up at him thoughtfully. 

He ran a hand nervously through his hair at this inspection. "What? Have I sprouted horns now or something?" 

"No, it's just... you look so different with darker hair. Older." 

He snorted. "It's not the years, it's the mileage." 

"Did it bother you, when I called you William, before? I won't, if it does. It's just that... Spike doesn't really seem to fit you all that well anymore." 

"You can call me anything you want, love," he replied softly. "I like the sound of my name in your mouth." 

She decided it would be best not to address that response, and so led the way without speaking further. He followed her in silence, always a few paces behind. 

********** 

Buffy set her pack on a convenient headstone just inside the cemetery gate and opened it. "I have your coat, if you want it." 

_The lovely Slayer trembled beneath him, her coffee-and-milk skin darkening further where bruises were beginning to form. Dark brown eyes looked up at him, and suddenly there was no fear anymore, only a longing for death to finally put an end to all the loneliness and pain. He'd been watching her for months preparing for this encounter. Vampires had taken the man she loved more than any other; now she would let one take her too. She'd earned a more honourable death than most - she had fought him gamely to the last. He took her face gently in his hands as he would caress a lover, and she closed her eyes. Before fear could claim her again, he had twisted her neck sharply. The breaking bones had sounded like gunshots in the enclosed space of the subway car. He'd taken no blood from her. Her coat, however, was a victor's trophy he wouldn't deny himself. _

Spike pulled the worn leather duster from the bag. It was permeated with memories of what he had been, and what he had wanted to be. "No. It looks better on you. You should really see about getting the sleeves shortened, though," he said softly, as he held it out for her. Buffy hesitated, but let him draw the duster over her arms to settle comfortably on her shoulders. He smoothed the lapels gently. "I told you her story. This coat once belonged to a warrior, you know. Now it does again." 

They put conversation aside for a time as they turned to the business of hunting, and they moved together as though they'd been training for weeks. When she needed an axe for a demon instead of a stake for a vampire, she put out her hand and his was there to hand off the weapons. He knew her every move, having studied her for so long; first to kill her, then to woo her. Buffy knew she ought to find the notion creepy, but instead it seemed... _comforting_, somehow. Like the coat had been, it was something that just felt right. She'd had to move in to save him a few times - his reflexes were nowhere near what they had been - but he was a match for most of the individual graveyard denizens they encountered. 

If only their entire relationship had been built on how well they fought vampires together, she would have welcomed him back with open arms. But he couldn't help but keep offering her his whole self; a gift that was too painful to hold and too fragile to simply let fall from her hands. 

They found themselves leaning up against a low wall near the edge of the graveyard after a while, pleasantly tired and not too dusty. "Can I ask you a question?" 

"You don't need my permission." 

"What made you fall in love with me?" 

Spike's brows knit as though he were facing Final Jeopardy and trying to decide how much to bet. "You burn. Twice as bright for lasting only half as long. I was reminded again of how bright you are just today when I saw you in the alley. You were so beautiful there in the sunlight. Like you were on fire inside." 

"Oh please. Covered in oil and smelling of grotty burger grease?" 

He shrugged. "Didn't notice. Doesn't matter. You're always beautiful to me. So am I a moth drawn to a flame? Do I have self-destructive urges? Probably." He kicked idly at a clump of dirt. "Don't ask me questions I don't have answers for. All I know is that as the feeling grew it consumed me, and there wasn't a single thing I could do about it. But if I can tell you anything else, I'll trade you truth for truth, Slayer." When she declined to offer another question, he asked the one that had been foremost in _his_ mind the whole evening. "Why am I here?" 

It was her turn to look puzzled. "That's kind of deep, isn't it? For the middle of the night, I mean." 

He smiled. "That's when those questions are traditionally asked - in the dark night of the soul, when we're farthest from God. But what I really meant was, why am I here _with you_? Why did you ask me to come patrol with you tonight?" 

_Speaking of questions without answers..._ "I think..." she drew out her answer, hoping the words would make sense when they came, "that I wanted to face you in a place where I was comfortable. A place where I knew I was the one in control, so I could see what's changed." 

"To test me. Test yourself dealing with me." 

"I suppose." 

They moved to sit together on the dew-damp grass, leaning against the convenient backrest of a doublewide headstone. _Beloved Husband... Beloved Wife..._ He declined to point out this irony to her, having come to prefer his body mostly unbattered, and waited long for her to speak again. 

"I guess I didn't really believe it until now." She spread one hand across her belly in an unconscious imitation of an expectant mother's protective gesture. "I know when vampires are near, I can just _feel_ them - and ever since we... since last year, I was able to tell you apart from all the others. Not just _vampire_, but _Spike_'s near." She twisted viciously at several helpless strands of grass that sprouted from a crack in the stone. 

"But now," her face bore an expression of confused loss, as if she couldn't understand why the absence of this sensation was something she regretted. "I... can't feel you any more. And I suppose I should really be glad for you, but..." 

"Didn't know what we had 'til it was gone," he said woodenly. "I always felt you, too. Of course, most vampires would - you frigging _glow_, love - and since there's only one Slayer around here lately, it had to be you. And now that I'm just _William the Wanker_ again... It's better we don't feel it any more. Won't go leading us into the mistaken sentiment that there's any special connection between us. That's what got us in trouble the last time." 

"Why are you here?" 

"Thought that was my question." 

She shook her head impatiently. "No. Why did you come back to Sunnydale? You're human again. You could have gone anywhere in the world, started a new life for yourself." 

"Because every night before I sleep I hear your voice crying out to me, over and over, to stop - and I don't." He dropped his chin to his arms where they rested on his knees. "I'm here to pay for what I did to you. For _everything_ I've done to you. You're one of the few who is still alive and able to grant me forgiveness. But all my dead will rise to meet me at the last trump and judge me there. Either I do enough to be granted absolution," he said darkly, "or I burn." 

His pessimistic mood shook her, and she took refuge in levity. "Whoa. Grim much? You've been sitting around in graveyards too long." 

"God's own truth, Slayer." 

_What do you say after that? Snap out of it? Like I just got over being dead? _

Something finally clicked from their conversation of that afternoon. Something that had been nagging at her unconscious all through the final hours of her shift: "When did you see Dawn?" 

He drew himself up to begin weaving a lie, but then saw the ice and steel in her eyes and knew it wouldn't do. Nothing but the hard truth would do from now on, if he ever thought he could be of any use to her, ever have even a portion of her trust. "She came to the crypt the day after I first saw you. Invited me to dinner. It... wasn't really possible to say no." He'd begun to slide irresistibly again into thoughts of suicide; soon even Clem would have been no obstruction to achieving his goal. He'd willingly damn his soul again, just to ease the pain of being alive. 

And then Dawn had blown into the crypt and brought sunlight with her. He had clutched at her like a drowning man suddenly desperate to live. Maybe it was that she was still, underneath everything, the Key, the raw creative power of the universe that denied chaos in all its myriad forms. Or maybe, more simply, it was just that she was a seventeen-year-old girl for whom despite everything the world still held bright promise of happiness. 

Hard eyes surveyed him yet. "And then... she asked me to come back. Teach her some fighting moves and in exchange she'd teach me how to cook. It's been... fairly regular, since then. That's how I got your banking information, too." He met her gaze squarely, willing her to see that he'd left nothing out, was attempting no deception. 

She smothered the fizz of laughter that wanted to rise inside her, like a soda opened on a hot day. How _dare_ he make her laugh at a time like this. Still... _The blind leading the blind, Dawn teaching Spike how to cook. _ She reached deep inside and made herself stone. "I don't want you seeing her anymore. The two of you should never have gone behind my back that way." 

He nodded, not a flicker of protest in his eyes. "Knew it wasn't really right. Had to end as soon as you found out." 

She carried on, intent on convincing herself as much as him. "Because what would happen if Mrs. Kroger or someone else from Social Services came over on one of their little surprise visits and found you there alone with her? How could I explain some unrelated guy in the house with my underage sister? It's bad enough I have to work evening shifts all the time and can't make supper for her or help her with her homework, or..." Her voice trailed away in distress. 

"Buffy," he said softly. "I _do_ understand. You only want what's best for Dawn. I was being self-indulgent, because she brings a light into my life that I didn't have before. I'll stay away. My word on it, if that still holds weight with you." 

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, from under lowered lids. She demonstrably loved her sister more than her own life, but still couldn't really understand how Spike might want to go out of his way to spend so much time with a teenage girl. _Unless the alternative were so awful..._ "Is it... hard? Being human again, I mean." 

"Human or vampire, I'd probably still... It's the soul makes it all difficult, see? It's one thing to prance about a vampire, saying 'ooh, look at me, I'm all evil', quite another to look back and know how monstrous and detestable a thing you truly were." 

Buffy was chilled by the self-loathing she heard in his voice. Her own voice seemed stopped up somewhere in her chest, at least, that's what she thought the pain was. 

"I hear them all the time now, the voices," he went on. "The children are the worst. Used to lull them until I could get them somewhere where no one would hear them, then set them to screaming - it sharpened the taste, I always thought. At first I just wanted to die, hearing their screams again, and this time knowing there was no one but me to blame." 

Her hand crept over her mouth to stifle the gasps of horror and grief that shook her shoulders. 

"I still think about dying, but it comes and goes, now. Know what keeps me around, most days?" 

_Oh god, I'm sorry. I can't be responsible for you along with Dawn and all the rest of the world. I just can't, it's too--._

"It's the thought of the expression on Dawn's face, the wounded look in her eyes if she knew I'd given up so easily. So many men have just walked out of her life: your father, Angel - even though she had the good sense to dislike the grand poof - soldierboy... I couldn't bear it, if I became just another man who disappointed her. Likely she'd draw me back from the grave to haunt her." 

Her thoughts were writ plain on her hurt face, and he felt endless regret as he added, once again, to her pain. "In order to disappoint _you_, love... you first would have had to believe in me." 

He got to his feet and brushed stray blades of dead grass from his jeans, then wordlessly offered her a hand up. He released his hold as soon as she had stable footing. "Be sure to tell her thanks for everything from me, and that I promise to keep in practice with the cooking." 

She didn't follow as he headed back to his crypt, thinking vastly important thoughts like the nature of good and evil, and what he might have for dinner. 


	16. The Salon

Well, you can always tell when there's good, satisfying Buffy on the telly - readership's way down - not like the end of Season 6! Or maybe you're just all starting to feel that this is a real lame duck of a story. I feel that way about it sometimes. It's because I already know how it ends, and I've written all of the best parts - now I have to write the parts that I don't have real vision for, but can't leave out for the sake of the storyline. In comparison, "Fragments" was a fever I had for 5 months, that completely controlled my life. 

Ah well, we work with what we have. So, have you reviewed lately? *g* 

Just so you know, this is a completely self-indulgent chapter. Natalie, Shelby and Judy (not their real names) are posting friends of mine at the Barge (www.arborwood.com/forums/barge). I was kidding around one day, and asked who would like to wash Spike's hair. This is the result.   
------------------ 

**The Salon**

"Slayer brought by a letter for you, Spike," Clem said as Spike arrived home after another night's work. "It's over on your bed." 

_A letter? From_ Buffy? he wondered, and hurried to discover what she might have left him. She'd put some effort into it, he saw; the stationery was probably one of the nicest she could find at the corner drugstore. She had even attempted to duplicate the seal he'd put on his letter to her of months ago, but hadn't realized that there was a difference between candle wax and sealing wax. He cracked open the thin seal that she'd scratched her initials into and pulled out a sheet of floral patterned paper. 

_Dear William_, the letter began. The handwriting was uneven, as though she had never had to write very much before - his love was too impatient for some things, he thought, and smiled before reading more. 

_Did you have a sister? If you did, you'd know how incredibly annoying they can be. Dawn isn't speaking to me because I won't let her see you alone anymore. She says she'll forgive me if I invite you over some time when I'm at home. _

So I guess this is an invitation. Can you come over for dinner on Sunday, about seven? Leave a note at the house or at work if you can - I know you don't have a phone there. Dawn promises some great new recipe. Maybe you should eat something before you come, just in case. 

Yours truly,   
Buffy 

  
_Ah, love. Truly mine? I know you only copied the phrase from some etiquette book - 'a polite complimentary close that doesn't encourage familiarity' - but I'm touched all the same. _ He folded the paper back up into the envelope, and then couldn't resist holding it to his nose to see if he could detect any lingering scent of her clinging to it. 

"Any interesting news?" Clem wanted to know. 

"Slayer's invited me to dinner," Spike said, tucking the letter under his pillow to dream on later. "Sunday night." 

Clem's face was suddenly wreathed in smiles. "You see? I told you you were worrying too much. Now that she knows about your soul, she won't be able to help falling for you." 

Spike was suddenly gripped with chill. _For me... or for William? _

********** 

The next day he stood outside the aesthetics salon for some time in indecision. His reflection in the window revealed a narrow-faced, bookish man with dark and light streaked hair curling behind his ears and over his collar. _All I need is the glasses to complete the picture. It's no wonder it doesn't bother her to be near me - I might as well be someone else entirely. _

He gripped the door handle and pulled it open resolutely, settling his most charming smile in place as he greeted the receptionist, an elegantly dressed, matronly woman, impeccably coiffed and turned out. Just seeing her made him realize that this place was several orders above the hair salon he'd taken it for. No doubt the prices would be equally stratospheric. _Still, in for a penny, in for a pound. I need to have everything right and proper for Buffy. _ He turned up his smile by several watts. If nothing else good, years as a vampire had at least taught him how to do charm. 

"Good afternoon. I'm interested in getting my hair looked after today - a cut and a bleach job. Any chance I can just walk in without an appointment?" The woman at the desk surveyed him critically up and down, taking in his worn tee shirt, jeans and jacket. He could practically hear the gears turning in her head as she evaluated him and the probable state of his funds before deciding to send him on his way. 

"I don't think we have anything available right now..." she began, but he cut her off. 

"Please," he said gently. "A woman - _the_ woman - that I've been away from for months has asked me to join her for dinner. Everything has to be perfect." Inside, he willed her desperately to bend. 

"Well... perhaps late this afternoon..." 

"Oh don't be such a prune, Dinah," a voice said from somewhere behind her. A dark haired woman emerged from somewhere in the depths of the shop and smiled at him. "I think we can squeeze him in," she added with a conspiratorial wink over the rim of her dark-framed glasses. "After all, men who would actually worry about looking good for their lady friends should be encouraged whenever possible, don't you think?" 

Dinah turned a sour eye at this interruption, but offered no more protest. The woman came forward and took Spike gently by the arm, leading him into the shadowed and perfumed depths of the salon. "I'm Natalie," she said by way of introduction as she led him past ranks of women ensconced under colossal metal helmets. Pairs of eyeballs could practically be heard clicking as they followed his progress closely across the room. 

"Spike," he replied. 

"Spike," she repeated with a smile. "Welcome to Heaven's Gate." She directed him to a chair amongst several women who looked as though they were vying for the title of 'best satellite signal reception', they had so much foil in their hair. "This is our main level. Hair, nails and makeup are down here. Upstairs we've got massage therapy, aromatherapy, waxing, body wraps... you name it, we probably do it. My specialty is colours and highlighting." 

He settled into the chair and let her drape a monogrammed wrap snugly around his throat. "I take it you don't get many blokes in here." 

She snorted laughter. "Are you kidding? Most of them would rather have their fingernails pulled out with pliers than venture in here. They're too afraid their buddies would think they were queer or something." 

Spike just wanted to sag bonelessly in the chair when Natalie raked her nails lightly over his scalp, combing his hair roughly back. He'd always been one for the touch - the simple hedonistic pleasure of physical contact - and he had been starved of it now for some time. His attention was so focused on her hands in his hair that he almost missed what she was saying. 

"You've let this go for some time," she _tsked_ over him thoughtfully. 

"Nearly five months," he felt compelled to admit. "I... left town for a long time, and it just wasn't important." 

"Well, we'll get you fixed up properly then," she said. 

After donning a set of protective gloves, Natalie set to work mixing the bleaching solution. The sharp scent of it carried him back in memory nearly twenty years to when he had first done it himself. But he didn't remember using those small pink packets of powder. 

Natalie must have seen him frown. "It's just Sweet 'n Low," she said, holding up one of the packets for his inspection. "Seven or eight of these in the bleach mix help keep it from stinging too much. I learned it from a customer a few years ago when I was working over at _The Funky Punkster. _ He probably changed his hair colour ever month - and to get the best results, you really should bleach the old colour away before you re-do it. I think he was in a band." She smiled fondly in memory. "He was such a sweetheart. I miss working there sometimes." 

She dabbed lotion around his hairline and ears before smearing the thick blue goo all through his hair. Once she had worked it in to her satisfaction, she covered his head with a thin foam cap, twisting it up and securing it with a couple of bobby pins. "There we go. Now we'll just let that process, and I'll be back to check on you in about twenty minutes." 

Spike had just settled himself more comfortably into his chair to wait when Natalie was back at his side, touching his shoulder gently for his attention. Another shorter and plumper woman stood at her side. 

"Spike? I know you didn't mention it, but I was wondering if you would like a shave as well? Shelby's next client of the afternoon has cancelled, if you're interested." 

He was about to protest that there would be no point since his dinner wasn't that day, but some vain part of himself weighed in with the opinion that having _two_ pretty women looking after him was, after all, better than one. "Sure," he agreed. "Why not?" 

"Terrific," the other woman - Shelby - said. "I'll get my stuff." 

"You won't regret it," Natalie said. "She does great work." 

Moments later she had Spike reclined in his chair and was draping a hot towel over his face. He hissed at the first contact, but was soon luxuriating in the heat against his skin. 

"This will be a treat," she said. "I haven't had a chance to give a man a shave since young Mr. Hope was in a few weeks back. Usually it's all facials, extractions and moisturizing masks." Her words were accompanied by mysterious clatters and clinks as she rearranged unseen supplies in a rolling cart she had positioned nearby. 

After removing the towel several minutes later, Shelby spread warm shaving lotion liberally over his face and throat. From her cart she then revealed a gleaming straight razor of the kind he hadn't seen in over a century. "It gives the closest shave," she explained. "Don't worry, I've kept in practice. I haven't killed a customer yet," she added, on seeing his surprised look. 

Shelby kept her word, trailing the naked steel delicately and with unusual finesse over his skin. For his part, he did his best not to tremble as the razor came close to his jugular. She used subtle touches with the fingers of one hand to turn and direct his head so she could reach both sides of his face without having to move around the chair. But Spike didn't think that she had quite intended the move that directed his gaze down into her generous cleavage. He simply smiled and kept looking down past the straining buttons of her smock as long as she had him turned that way - and was grateful for the concealing drape over himself. 

"So, Natalie tells me that tonight's a big night for you," Shelby said as she worked on him. "She must be somebody really special; it takes a lot to get a guy to come in here." 

It would be too much effort to explain that his dinner with Buffy was actually scheduled for Sunday, so Spike simply agreed. "The one girl in all the world," he said. 

"Wow. You've got it pretty bad. She's a lucky girl, whoever she is." She clucked her tongue, suddenly wistful. "I must always be looking in the wrong places. I wish I knew how to get a guy to feel that way about me." 

_Let's see. Let him threaten to kill you. Help him when he asks you to stop your current boyfriend from destroying the world. Let him point out how unsuitable said boyfriend is. Let him try to kill you again. Save him when the government puts a chip in his head to try to control him. Let him fight by your side. Trust him with the lives of your family and friends. Die and leave him behind to try and carry on your life's work. Be restored to life and let him be the only one you can tell about how you feel. Sleep with him because you want to hurt yourself. Don't kill him like he deserves when he attacks you like the monster he is... _

Forgive him. 

Spike trembled, grateful that Shelby had finished with the razor. "I'm afraid I can't help you there," he said, managing to keep the tremor out of his voice. 

After she wiped the last traces of shaving cream from his face with the towel, Shelby's fingers lingered a little longer on his face than was strictly necessary as she applied a soothing aftershave balm. 

"There you are," she said at last. "I guarantee you'll be completely irresistible." 

"She's something else, isn't she?" said a new voice from behind him as Shelby returned his chair to an upright position. Shelby gave him a wink and a wave as she rolled her cart away. The mirror revealed a slim woman with curly dark hair standing behind him, and his confusion must have shown in his face. 

"Oh, sorry. I'm Judy." Her gloved fingers untwisted his cap and pulled out a lock of hair to examine it. "I think that's about enough time," she said, tucking the curl back into place. "Natalie asked me to take over for her. One of her regulars just came in with a bit of a crisis. It seems she spent a little too much time in the hot tub and turned her hair green." 

Judy led Spike to a free chair in front of the row of sinks and settled him there. With brisk efficiency, she took the cap from his head and leaned him back over the sink to rinse the bleaching solution away. He closed his eyes in pleasure as the warm water sluiced through his hair. Something brushed his cheek and he started, opening his eyes to the sleek pink expanse of her tank top. 

"Sorry," she said. "I had to reach farther for the conditioner than I thought." 

"Think nothing of it," he replied, resolving to keep his eyes open from that point on. 

Judy had exceptionally strong hands and spent several minutes massaging his scalp after she had applied the conditioner. He was hard pressed to decide whether the sensation or the view as she leaned over him held more appeal, and felt an almost physical sensation of loss when she took her hands from his head and rinsed the conditioner away. She briskly towelled his hair then wrapped a towel snugly about his head before settling him in one of the chairs before the mirror that ran nearly the entire length of the salon. 

"Can I get you something to drink before I start?" Judy asked as she adjusted the chair's height. "Coffee, maybe?" 

"Tea, if you have it," he replied, not expecting a positive answer 

"Sure. We've got... Earl Grey, Oolong, Lapsang Souchong, Darjeeling, green tea, lemon, cinnamon, chamomile... um... I know I missed some." 

Spike mentally adjusted the price he was going to pay for his hair upwards by a double-digit number before replying. "Oolong." 

"Did you want milk or sugar with that? We just ran out of cream a while ago, though, sorry." 

"Milk and sugar - one lump - will be fine. Cream is for cats - and you have nothing to apologize for," he observed mildly. 

"So--" She flushed. "I'll be right back." 

Despite the salon's obvious pride in their service, Spike steeled himself for a styrofoam cup - or at best a thick ceramic coffee mug - so he was pleasantly surprised when Judy returned with a delicate china teacup complete with saucer. He sipped at it reverently. 

Judy's sure fingers tilted his head this way and that as she wielded scissors first to trim his long locks. She followed the scissors with a set of electric clippers that buzzed pleasantly against his skull, vibrating deep into his bones. 

Spike tried to relax and enjoy her attention as she cut his hair, but was distracted again by memories of visiting similar shops with Drusilla. A touch of her mesmerizing power so that no one would notice they had no reflections, and then he would watch while his dark princess would run the girls ragged, making them set her hair in half a dozen different styles. She always left looking the same as when she had entered, though. And they had always left the bodies in the back room where they wouldn't be discovered until some time after the two of them had gone. 

Judy held the mirror up behind him so he could see the final result, breaking into his unpleasant reverie. He dragged himself back into the present, noticing too that his cup was empty. A stranger stared back at him from the mirror, white blond hair cropped close to his neck and slicked severely back. 

He still wasn't used to being able to see his own reflection, so he checked his hair the way he always had; he set the cup down, closed his eyes and ran both hands over his head. _Too slick. Buffy likes it...messy. _ He used the fingers of one hand to tug some of the curls loose. 

"Girlfriend likes it curly, hey?" Judy asked with a wink. "Me too." She tousled his hair thoroughly, and then held the mirror up behind him again. "How's that?" 

"Better." 

Spike left the shop with a tube of overpriced hair gel in his pocket and considerably less cash in his pocket. _Hope I'm not going to make a fool of myself. It's not in the plan, but my plans always seem to go a little pear-shaped after first contact with Buffy. _


	17. A New Beginning?

**A New Beginning?**

She stood in her room looking at the little grey box as though it might open suddenly and bite her. Taking a deep breath, Buffy picked it up and snapped it open. _I'm not promising anything. They were a gift, and I'm only being polite by letting him see me wear them._ But her fingers still shook as she slipped the delicate wires into her ears. 

She turned in front of the mirror to inspect her appearance before heading downstairs. The long suede skirt swirled around her legs and the matching low boots. She reached up to adjust the high cowl of her white sweater around her neck and to tuck her hair casually behind her ears. The amethyst earrings sparkled brightly, even in the room light. 

Dawn was bustling about in the kitchen with a purposeful air when she came down. Something smelled wonderful, and Buffy was forced to admit that Dawn was probably becoming a better cook than she would ever be. "Is there anything I can do?" she asked. 

"Everything's under control," Dawn insisted, despite her flushed face to which tendrils of dark hair were clinging. She wrestled a covered dish into the oven and closed the door. "There. Nothing left to do but wait, now." She turned to inspect her sister. 

Buffy suddenly felt as though _she_ were the younger one, an impression only amplified by the fact that Dawn seemed to have grown four inches taller than her, all in one summer. She looked down to pick invisible lint from her skirt. 

"You look great!" Dawn gushed, abruptly dispelling the illusion. "Are those some of Mom's earrings?" 

"No, ah... Spike gave them to me. That is, he left them at the front door with a note one night," Buffy admitted. "I thought... I should let know that I liked them." 

_That's probably not all that you should let him know. Mind you, that means you'd have to admit things to yourself first. _ Dawn leaned in to have a closer look at the earrings. They were really gorgeous, she decided. "Can I borrow them some time?" 

"What? No!" 

Just then the doorbell rang, startling them both. 

********** 

He took a deep breath, and rang the doorbell. He _wasn't_ nervous, the collar of the turtleneck was just a little tight and he ran two fingers under it to adjust it. It _wasn't_ black, it was dark green, thank you - though admittedly you had to stand in strong light to make the distinction. Likewise the trousers - _not_ jeans - the girl at the thrift shop had assured him they were 'charcoal', and looked very nice on him, too. But the new shoes pinched; he missed his boots. Hearing women's voices on the other side of the door, he stood up straighter, cradled the wine bottle in one arm and tried to look unconcerned, desperately afraid they'd see through his charade. 

Buffy opened the door and suddenly felt her heart stutter. It wasn't William at the door; it was _Spike_, all peroxide blond again and with attitude to spare. He was just standing there in the doorway; cool as the other side of the pillow. He tilted his head to one side with that look she knew so well, the one that said 'come fuck me'. Buffy cut off that thought sharply before it could go anywhere. _Big_ scissors, thank you very much. 

And oh god, the longing in his eyes as he looked at her and straightened, drawing breath to speak. He positively _blazed_, bathed in the light of the prosaic 60-watt incandescent in the porch fixture, alabaster skin seemingly lit from within. She thought it would burn to touch him - _had_ burned, that desire; pain and pleasure inextricably mixed - and she couldn't face that fire again. Something of her thoughts must have shown in her face and she cursed it for a traitor, because he abruptly looked down and away. She felt an almost physical jolt as he turned his eyes from her, shuttering that incredible inner light, damping himself down so as to not torment her further. 

His first thought, as always, was how beautiful she was - and how unconscious she was of her beauty, which only increased it. His heart skipped a beat, and picked up again in quicker rhythm. _She's wearing the earrings. I have no right to expect anything - but she's wearing them._

"Evening Niblet," he said, looking instead at Dawn beside her in the doorway, though these were surely not the words he had originally intended. "And Happy Christmas a bit early if I don't see you again before the day. I understand we have you to thank for dinner tonight. I brought some wine I thought might do - maybe between us we can convince big sis to let you have a taste." He proffered the wine bottle to Buffy as though it were a peace offering. She held it awkwardly before her like armour against the intensity of his regard. 

"I don't see what the big deal is," Dawn complained. "It's just spoiled grape juice." 

They all laughed perfunctorily. "Takes a while to acquire an appreciation of some things is all," Spike observed. Buffy's hands tightened on the bottle. That was - was not - a comment directed at her. Her stomach roiled, and all at once she wasn't sure she could face even the thought of food. 

Spike hesitated in the doorway. "May I come in then?" he asked quietly at last, and for a blinding moment Buffy was sure that he'd found someone to sire him as vampire again, a return to the inexorable killing machine he'd been, so that he could revenge himself on her. 

She shook the thought away impatiently; Slayer senses detected nothing... not the slightest sign of the undead about him. Close her eyes, and she wouldn't even know he was there. His power over her was sourced entirely in her heart, and in his. "I didn't think you'd _need_ an invitation anymore," she observed. 

"The Powers may not require it, but manners still do," he replied. 

"Then come in. We're glad you could come over tonight," said Dawn, as though daring Buffy to contradict her. 

With a duck of his head that was almost apologetic, Spike came through the door, and Buffy shut it behind him. For a few awkward moments the three of them stood silently at the base of the stairs. Since neither Spike nor Buffy seemed to want to be the first to speak, Dawn jumped in. "Come on into the kitchen and we can open the wine." She led the way. 

Once there, Dawn took the bottle from her sister's unresponsive hands and examined it closely, tearing away at the foil over the mouth of the bottle. "Jeez, Spike, this _is_ California you know," she complained. "Couldn't you have found a bottle with a screw cap? I don't even know if we _have_ a corkscrew." 

Spike raised one eyebrow as though insulted, and Dawn laughed. With that, the ice in the room seemed to thaw slightly, though they still weren't speaking. Buffy rummaged in a small drawer beside the refrigerator and wordlessly presented Dawn with the corkscrew, which she promptly handed off to Spike along with the bottle. 

He set the screw tip into the cork and twisted, feeling it bite deep. With it firmly seated, he braced the bottle with one hand and pulled. Nothing happened. 

"Do you want me to--" Buffy began. 

"No," he replied shortly, and pulled harder, finally being rewarded with a squeaking slide and pop as the cork slid free. Dawn ducked out momentarily, returning with crystal from the dining room cabinet. 

He poured two glasses. The wine was golden and light-filled; something delicate and fruity that wouldn't be too overwhelming for an inexperienced palate. He wasn't sure if he meant hers or his own now. In any case, red wine would have looked too much like blood. He set the bottle back on the counter and picked up the glasses, handing one to Buffy that she accepted without comment. 

"Go. Out. Go have your drinks and sit and talk, or something. I'll call you both when everything's ready." Dawn insistently shooed them out of the kitchen and into the living room. They were helpless to resist her, and ultimately found themselves staring at each other over the coffee table littered with Dawn's teen gossip magazines. 

_Talk? How can I talk?_ All her words had dried up, and seemingly Spike's had as well. _Oh, there_ must _be an apocalypse coming; Spike has nothing to say_. He had always been at her before, to talk to her, to get her to talk to him; she had never thought there would be any situation where he would be at a loss for words. 

"Why?" Unable to manage anything else, she waved vaguely at his hair. She sat at one end of the couch and he settled carefully at the other, far from her. He sipped at his wine deliberately before setting the glass down on the table. 

"Why am I coming all Spike at you?" She nodded. "Trying to prove a point, I suppose. I could tell that you were setting up Spike and William in your head as two different men, trying to deal with how you feel about them. We're not different. That story about how a vampire is completely different from the original man? That's utter bollocks. Everything he did wrong is something I've done wrong. I know you don't like hearing that, but it's true. I'm the one who hurt you so many times, and now I'm the one who hopes he can be forgiven someday." He shifted position towards her on the sofa and reached for her hands, and she set down her glass in turn to permit the contact. Suddenly the floodgates had opened, and he couldn't stop. 

"This isn't about trying to get you to love me now. Last year I encouraged you to turn away from your friends, telling you that you came back wrong, all to bring you closer to me. I knew you were using me, and I didn't care, because as long as you were, you would stay with me. I knew I could have only scraps from you, but I still came begging. I just wanted someone to love me - or someone that I could pretend did." 

_What was it I told Angel? 'Love makes you do the wacky'? I guess you don't have to be human for that to be true. _

"And before you ask, I have thought about it. I can't go to Angel. We never really got along or had shared anything - except, on occasion, Dru's favours, and you know how well we managed that. He was born common and was desperate to ape quality; I was born to privilege and was equally desperate to shed it. And I always resented like hell the way he kept me - us - under his thumb. And now that I have everything that he's ever wanted..." 

She drew back her hands, frowning. "That's damned arrogant." _I knew this whole thing was too good to be true. _

"I just meant - not you. I wasn't suggesting that--" he spluttered self-consciously, and struggled to recover. "I have a soul - but even better, I'm alive. Human again, when he's still a vampire, fighting the bloodlust and the demon constantly for control. I don't have to like him to respect how he must have to wrestle every day with that. And all because I don't know any better than to beat my gums in front of a powerful wish-granting demon. Angel could only see it as a vast cosmic joke at his expense; that I should be granted his fondest desire." _I can be with you in the daylight, even if you never love me. _

Buffy curled her hands into her lap thoughtfully. "It wasn't really as simple as that though, was it?" Without her conscious will, her mind cast back five years to remember all they had gone through, trying to win back Angel's soul. Jenny's reconstruction of the lost Gypsy curse; her death and the destruction of their first orb of Thessula; Willow's first steps into a darker world where immense power tempted her at every step. And in the end, none of it had mattered; though his soul had been restored, Angel's blood still had to be spilled to close the door on Acathla, sending them both to hell - only hers had been here on earth. 

All of that for a soul, held for only moments before she had banished him; and now here was William in front of her, newly made man. Surely such a gift would have had a monstrous price. Another weight seemed to settle in her heart. She'd made him do this. She hadn't chained him up in his crypt and demanded he choose, but she was just as responsible as if she had. And he didn't have any idea. He'd faced who knew what tests and torments, all because he wanted to change for her. Would she ever bring anything but suffering to the people she cared about? _Whoa, where did_ that _come from? _

"Well he certainly didn't clap me on the back and say 'clearly you are worthy'," Spike said, trying to lighten the suddenly oppressive mood. The truth about his trials wasn't something she ever had to know. Being Buffy, she'd find some way to blame herself for what had been entirely his own idea. _Not the brightest idea I ever had, but why mess with tradition? _ He continued his story brightly. "In fact, I got the distinct impression that he was disgusted with me for taking such a backward step. He was a demon, after all, and to one like that, the desire for a soul must seem decidedly recidivist. Probably thought he would make it worse for me by making me human again, too. You know, 'man is but dust', 'mortal coil' and all that sodding nonsense? Hadn't the heart to tell him he'd actually done me a good turn. Didn't get it quite right, but it's actually worked in my favour." 

She couldn't let it alone. So many things done in her name that she had no control over; she at least had to hear the whole truth from him. "William, I have to know. You said that you wanted your soul back because you loved me; I need to know what I made you do." 

_Bloody hell! She's still going to take it that way. _ "Since when did I become someone you could _make_ do things, pet?" he asked with a smile. "You didn't make me love you, and you didn't make me go off in search of my soul, either. The former I just fell into one day..." Memories of a dream and the shocked surprise that had followed when he realized his heart knew more than his head. Head took a while to come around, but it had been inevitable from the very start. "And the latter was-" 

A car horn sounded outside, cutting off his words. Dawn rushed past with a backpack, snatching up her coat from the peg. "That'll be Megan's mom. She'll give me a ride back tomorrow morning after the sleepover." 

"Sleepover?" Buffy exclaimed. "You never said anything about-" 

"It's a teacher work day tomorrow, remember? Gotta go! Everything's in the oven or on the stove ready for you. See you in the morning, Buffy." With that, Dawn was out the door and down the walk to the waiting station wagon before her sister could muster even the beginning of a protest. 

Spike stood, walked into the dining room and took in the dimmed lights, the candles, and the table set for two with Joyce's heirloom china. "I think we've been set up." 

"I _know_ we have," Buffy said, coming up behind him. She ran her hands through her hair in a gesture of frustration then closed them into fists at her sides as she recognized what she was doing. "_Damn_ her for pulling a stunt like this." 

"She probably thought she was doing us a favour; giving us more time to talk alone." He cleared his throat pensively. "If this situation makes you uncomfortable, I can go," he offered. 

"No. That's not necessary. You were expecting to get dinner, so that's what you'll get. You should, since it was probably your money that paid for it." 

"I told you - that was a gift." _I wish you didn't make it sound so much like a terrible punishment. _ "Don't put yourself out on my account. I can always head back to the crypt, get the chef to whip something up." 

"Chef?" Her brow furrowed in confusion. 

"Yeh, you know. Boyardee?" 

Buffy nearly exploded with laughter, clapping one hand tightly over her mouth to muffle it at the thought of Spike and ravioli from a can. She could just picture him, one dark brow raised as he contemplated the intricacies of the nutritional information label. She almost had it under control when the thought occurred to her that he might prefer beefaroni. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she gasped, when she finally could breathe evenly again. "It's not really funny." 

"Yes it bloody well is," he laughed in turn. "Evil vampire returns from quest; having found source of bad jokes. Slayer dies laughing," he declared in his best American TV news anchor voice, sparking another round of helpless hilarity from her. 

Soon she was leaning against the wall, one hand vainly attempting to stifle giggles while the other held her aching stomach. "Please, no more! It's your most evil plot ever." 

_Works a lot better than any of my other plots ever did. Too bad it took me this long to find out. _ The sound of her laughter was the music of heaven to his ears and he wished it would always be this easy to make her happy. 

He waited to speak again until she calmed once more and was wiping laughter-induced tears from her eyes. "Why don't we just set the kitchen table with your regular dinnerware and eat in there?" he suggested. "Then we won't have to worry about manhandling the fancy crockery, and it will be that much easier to clean up." Seeing the relief in her expression that she didn't even try to hide, he knew he had made the right decision. 

_Oh love, you deserve to be taken out for the most romantic dinners in the most elegant cities in the world. You should wear nothing but the finest designer clothes and be the centre of attention wherever we go, and the world and I would dance to your every whim. Instead, all I can offer you is Corningware on the kitchen table and help with the dishes. _

********** 

He did his best during dinner to keep the conversation light and free of controversial topics. So instead he told her stories of glittering cities he'd seen around the world - without ever referring to his own activities there - and then of Clem's adventures while he'd been gone. He made her laugh out loud three times - he kept count. 

When they were done, both Spike and Buffy reached for the serving dish at the same time, then dropped it in surprise to clatter loudly on the table. Buffy laughed nervously. "How about you clear the table, then I can wash and you can dry." 

"All right." 

"Maybe next time... the dishwasher will be fixed. Since we... came into some money," she offered tentatively. 

He tried hard to contain his elation at the thought that he might be made welcome another time, and only nodded. "Whatever you decide to do with it, love," he said levelly. "I just want to help if I can." 

She moved to the sink and twisted at the taps to fill the sink with hot, sudsy water. Spike decided not to press further, and began to gather up the dishes, stacking them beside the sink for her. He took up a dishtowel and stood ready. 

When she handed him a plate his fingers brushed over hers and they both froze at the contact. Her hazel eyes widened as she looked up at him, and he knew a look equally deer-in-the-headlights had taken up residence on his own face. He took the plate from her gently and set it in the rack before they ended up dropping this one too, then laced his fingers in hers. 

She was mesmerized by the sensuous rasp of his calloused thumb across her palm. "William," she breathed, her mouth gone suddenly dry. "Spike, I--" 

"I love you, Buffy." It always came back to that. She was the true north for the lodestone of his heart, no matter how the world spun and twisted under him. He bent his head slowly, giving her every chance to withdraw, to tell him _no_, but desperately praying that she wouldn't. His kiss was no more than a butterfly wing brush of his lips across hers. Memory surged... 

_She clutched at the back of his neck, driving her mouth onto his. After the first few panicked seconds, he was returning her kiss fiercely, forcing her mouth open, their tongues struggling against one another. Strong fingers scratched and clawed at him, leaving welts that would heal in hours - except in his memory, where he would trace her every touch over and over again in lonely days to come. He drove her back roughly into the wall and she lifted her legs to encircle his waist, holding even more tightly to him. Heaven was within his grasp, within the circle of his arms in the person of this one small woman..._

Reminiscence faded as she drew back suddenly and looked up at him, a deep vertical crease forming between her brows. He knew that look; seldom had it gone well for him after that. He had always thought of that maddeningly endearing crease as her 'Buffy want' line, and in this case what she probably wanted was him, out the door - or out of town, more likely. He strongly resisted the urge to run his thumb over her forehead and smooth the furrowed skin there; instead, he licked his lips slowly to fix the taste of her once more in his memory. _I am not going to fuck this up_. 

"Please," she murmured, her eyes downcast. "Just go. I can't... I can't do this any more. I won't. There's just too much pain in it - for both of us. I told you that I've forgiven you, and I have... but I can't ever be with you." He could see clearly that the only memories his kiss triggered in her were of his brutal attack last spring. Her screams echoed again in his mind, drowning out the other voices there. 

_Except that I already_ did _fuck this up, long ago_. Before his mouth could do any more harm to the woman he loved, Spike turned, pulled open the back door and was gone into the night. If he'd stayed a moment longer, he would have tried to cut out his own heart with one of her kitchen knives. 

----------------   
Okay, you all know where that last image came from, and I don't deny it. This was originally the turning point, when everything finally started coming together for the two of them. As you can see, I changed my mind. The author always reserves the right to have a better idea, and this has become a longer and harsher story than I had first imagined. But I promise, if you can stick it out, there is a light at the end of the tunnel for these two, and it isn't a train. Really. 

Would I lie to you? *g* 


	18. Tea and Sympathy

_A huge thank you has to go out this time to my beta, **HurrySundown**. As usual, she was right on the money about what was missing in this chapter. The title's hers, too. I'd be even slower without her, so we all have reason to be grateful, don't we? *g* _   
--------------- 

**Tea and Sympathy**

_Oh misery! Oh, misery!   
Tell me why does my heart make a fool of me   
Seems it's my destiny   
For love to cause me misery... _

I still hate it... but fuck, does it make sense when you're drunk. Spike set down his glass, unsure of exactly when it had become empty again. He looked from one end of the bar to the other, trying to find someone who could explain what had happened to it. 

"Spike, I'm going to have to cut you off unless you give me your keys." 

"Don't have keys," he mumbled. "Didn't drive here." He looked up at a tall, broad, dark-haired blur over the bar. _Joey_, he identified. _Works weekends only because he's taking that cabinet-making course at the community college. Was ready to quit school when his girlfriend thought she was pregnant..._ Joey was the one who had helped him install some of the mirrors he had suggested, once Jake had okayed the idea. 

"Even so, I think you should step outside for some air and take a break from the bottle for a while - or you'll be in for a world of hurt tomorrow." 

_World of hurt? What kind of people talk like that? You've been working here too long listening to this music, mate. _ He couldn't find the proper words to protest and so instead found himself rising unsteadily to his feet. 

"I'll keep your place for you. And Spike? If there's anything you want to talk about..." he offered. 

"Yeah, sure," Spike replied non-committally as he wove an unsteady path through the other dedicated drinkers to the patio doors. 

********** 

Three cigarettes later, his mood not at all improved though he was slightly steadier on his feet, Spike leaned over the rail of Desperados' patio, surveying the passing throngs. The fact that it was Sunday hadn't noticeably reduced the size of the crowds making their way from bar to strip club to blissful oblivion. 

"Those things will kill you, you know," a familiar husky voice observed from the sidewalk below. He looked down into Allie's smiling round face. 

"Was better off when I was dead," he muttered. "I think I'm the only man who can say that, and actually know it's true." He laughed bleakly. "At least then I didn't care what I did." 

"Ouch," she murmured, not without sympathy. "Sounds like a bad day." She rummaged in her bag for a cigarette of her own. "Got a light?" 

Spike reached down and snapped his lighter open in front of her. Allie steadied his hand with hers and directed the tip of her cigarette delicately into the flame. Her skin glowed golden in the flickering light. 

"Come up and have a drink with me," he said suddenly, gripped by an emotion he couldn't name. 

Allie paused and drew again on her cigarette. "You know I don't do bars, Spike," she replied, gently chiding him. "I don't like misunderstandings." 

"It's one drink, I'm buying, what's to understand?" 

After a moment's thought, she shrugged and waved acquiescence. She squeaked in surprise as Spike leaned out over the railing of the low patio and took hold of her by the waist, lifting her until she found herself seated on the rail. 

Her nails were wine red this week, he noted absently, as she clutched at him to steady herself. She swung her legs over the railing and for a lunatic moment, Spike wondered if wondered if she had chosen her nail polish to match her underwear. 

"Hey, you can't--" Spike turned to deal with Corey, who was advancing on them from his post at the front door. "Oh, hey Spike. Sorry, I didn't know it was you with that hair." He smiled engagingly at Allie, and Spike reluctantly introduced him to her. "Just let her use the front door next time, okay?" 

"Well, _I _like the hair," Allie said with a grin when Corey had gone. As they walked back into the smoky darkness of the bar, she clearly also enjoyed all the male attention turned her way, right up until the moment Spike steered her to a secluded corner table. He waved over the nearest cowboy-hat-and-boot-clad server. 

Tina smiled and rested her tray on one cocked hip. "Hey Spike, what can I get you?" 

He dropped a twenty on the tray. "Tell Joey to set me up same as before, and..." he looked at Allie. 

"I'll have a 'vampire's kiss' please," she said, with a wicked smile at Spike. 

"You'll have Joey checking the Mr. Boston's on that one, that's for sure," Tina said as she turned away. "Be right back." 

Spike just raised his eyebrows. "What?" Allie asked, laughing. "It seemed appropriate. And I never could resist those fruity girly drinks." 

Tina was back in a few minutes to set their drinks in front of them. "Spike," she started, with a look of concern, "Joey thinks you should take it easy--" 

"Yeah? Well tell Joey for me that _he should mind his own bloody business! _" Spike roared, turning to look back over his shoulder at the bar. Heads turned towards them from all around, and Tina recoiled. "I don't need a damn nursemaid either," he said to her. "Just do your job." 

Allie raised her glass silently to toast this performance, and waited until Tina had retreated across the bar before she leaned forward. "So. Tell me about her." 

"About who? Tina?" Spike asked, confused. 

"Oh come on, Spike, don't play stupid with me because I won't buy it. The girl who made you end up here tonight. Look at you: new hair, new clothes - and new shitty mood. Of course it's a girl." She took a long swallow of her blood-red drink and then stirred the ice with the straw. "You didn't buy me a drink for the pleasure of watching me drink it. Just because you don't want what my... customers... usually want doesn't mean you don't want _something_. So talk." 

He tossed back his whiskey and exhaled a long sigh as it burned its way down his throat. "It's not a one drink story," he warned. 

Allie folded her hands around her glass and leaned forward. "So keep buying, and I'll keep listening as long as I think it's interesting. You won't get a more honest offer than that." 

Spike looked down and watched as his fingers trailed abstract patterns in the condensation on his beer bottle. "All right then. Drusilla and I blew into town in the fall of ninety-seven..." 

********** 

The crowds had thinned and dispersed by the time Spike finished describing everything that had led up to the events of that night. Allie pushed her latest empty glass away and flopped back in her seat, shaking her head. "Boy, Spike, you sure don't screw things up just halfway, do you?" 

Spike didn't answer. Retelling the events of times past and present was like reliving them, and he shook, fighting hard to control his emotions. No more for him the cool detachment of a mature vampire's emotions and knowing you had potentially centuries in which to contemplate your actions. No matter what he had claimed in the past, they had been pale imitations of the feelings coursing through him now. Hot blood, yes, and the curse of even hotter emotion, everything magnified a thousand times from what he recalled. Urgent hormones surged in his blood, crying _fight! flee! destroy! run! _ in endless cacophony. He bit his lip and tasted blood. 

He pressed his palms against the scarred tabletop, fingers splayed. "It's no wonder I horrified her," he whispered. "Right now, looking back, I horrify myself." 

"I don't know, Spike," Allie said, matter-of-factly. "If I didn't know any of that, I would think you were an ordinary guy. I did, in fact, when I met you. A little intense, maybe..." She laughed and tipped a last ice cube from her glass into her mouth, crunching it energetically. 

He lowered his eyes, and a broken laugh escaped him. "I was such a thing as to make the very angels in heaven weep." He nodded. "She was right to tell me no. To tell me _go_. I was stupid not to see it." 

"I can't connect all of what you told me with the decent guy sitting here in front of me," Allie countered. "It sounds like something out of a melodrama - a _bad_ melodrama." 

"You haven't lived on the Hellmouth long enough," Spike said darkly, but was denied further commentary by the sight of Tina approaching the table. 

"It's last call, you two. Is there anything else I can get you?" Tina eyed Spike warily - as she had all evening - as though he were a volcano that might erupt again at any moment. 

"We've had enough," he said; words that would gladden Joey's little interventionist heart, he was sure. "I'll settle up." He pulled a much-reduced stack of folded bills from his pocket. Peeling off a few, he handed them to Tina. "Keep whatever's left for your troubles, love." 

She offered him a hesitant smile before turning away, and he rebuked himself and tallied one more relationship that would need rebuilding. 

Allie's warm fingers closed over his on the last of the folded bills. "_I'd_ never tell you no, Spike," she said softly, holding his gaze. "Would you like to... take a walk with me? Have that good time I promised you the first time we met?" 

_I couldn't drink her away. And talking about her only makes me want her more. I just want to blot out my memories... Be that decent guy Allie thinks I am..._ He didn't reply, but his eyes closed and his fingers released their hold on the cash. Allie swiftly stowed it in her bag before he could change his mind. She took him by the hands and pulled him up to stand next to her. She slipped one arm about his waist and they made unsteady progress out into the night. 

They made it across the street in a stumbling, three-legged progression and leaned heavily against the wall of the alley. Spike took a deep breath and pulled away. "You don't have to do this," he said, looking away. 

"You're right, I don't," she replied. Spike's head snapped up again to look at her in disbelief. "I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. So maybe I want to." 

"I can't... I'm not a good man," he insisted. "I don't deserve--" 

"Oh, Spike," she sighed. "You're as good a man as any I've ever met, and a damned sight better than some, let me tell you." For an instant her professional demeanour seemed to slip and reveal a weary, frightened woman behind the mask - but the moment passed before Spike could be sure of what he had seen. "I don't see anyone else around this part of town who gives a damn whether we live or die. But you... I've seen you out on the streets after work, or even on your days off, looking for vampires." 

He nodded, acknowledging the truth of her observation. "That's what I do best." While it didn't - _couldn't_ - begin to pay back the debt he owed, it was the one thing he'd trained decades for and knew he could do well - he could kill. If now he was on the side with the good guys, so much the better. 

Allie took advantage of his moment of introspection to slip her arm around his waist again, drawing him close. "I'm sure there are other things that you do just as well." He surrendered to the sensation and let his arm slide around her in return. Perhaps he didn't deserve it, but it suddenly seemed an offence against his new-won humanity to refuse the comfort being offered him. 

Some of this last he must have said out loud, because Allie laughed abruptly. "Yeah, a regular comfort woman, that's me." She tightened her hold on him and dropped the fingertips of her free hand to rest lightly on his belt buckle. "I know a place..." 

But as though her movement had been the permission he had been waiting for, his body was suddenly seized with a raging need and desire, and he crushed her rounded form tightly against his, clutching at her as though fearful she'd be taken away. 

Allie laughed again, but this time husky and low in her throat. "Well. Somebody's impatient. Let's at least get out of sight of the street." 

Together they drew back into the shadows. When they had found a darkened doorway alcove, she pulled a small, square foil packet from her bag before she let it drop to the ground and handed it to him. He just looked at it, uncomprehendingly. 

"It's a condom, Spike." She raised her eyebrows questioningly. "You know, _condom_?" 

"I know what it is," he replied, stung. "Just never had much use for one before." 

"Well if you don't, you won't now, either," she said, pulling away. Spike caught her around the waist and drew her back. 

"B'fore this, I was dead," he reminded her, running an unsteady finger of one hand from the point of her chin down her throat. "Wasn't really a concern." 

She considered this. "What about before you died?" 

Spike just shook his head mutely. 

"You mean you died without ever...?" 

He nodded then, feeling an unreasonable vague shame. It hadn't been for the lack of opportunity, but rather because young William had striven to be a gentleman's gentleman, to whom such things were anathema. _No_, he corrected himself with brutal honesty, _because such things were_ terrifying. 

_After the informal, he'd refused cousin Henry's offer to share a hansom cab, claiming that he preferred to walk in London's night air in order to fire his creative muse. It wasn't that far to where he was staying in town, so with a sheaf of papers in one hand and his fountain pen in the other, he walked for blocks first along Warwick Street and then down Rochester Row. He was quite oblivious to his surroundings as he racked his brain for a rhyme for 'effervescent', in order to advance his latest ode to Cecily's beauty. Having quite recently successfully rhymed 'orange' with 'door hinge', he was confident that he'd have a solution shortly. _

He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he didn't look up until loud laughter broke into his reverie. Startled, he looked up to realize that in his distraction he must have missed the turn that would have taken him onto Victoria Street, and was now on a street he didn't recognize. The bulk of Millbank Penitentiary loomed in the near distance, and the row of well-to-do homes had given way to somewhat more squalid properties, interspersed with shops and pubs. He looked around to see where the laughter had come from. 

A laughing group of men and women were emerging from a doorway deeply recessed in the soot-darkened brick frontage of the building opposite. The men had the appearance of labourers, judging by their coarse clothing, while the women's bodices were cut rather lower than modesty or current fashion would dictate. As he watched, one of the men pulled his escort into his embrace and kissed her roughly, and he was shocked at the wanton public display. Their companions, however, laughed and cheered them on. Against his better judgement, he felt himself irresistibly drawn to follow them into a shadowed lane. 

It took his eyes a few moments to adjust to the dimness, and then even longer to comprehend the sight before him. The man had his partner pressed to the wall. Her skirts were lifted high to reveal bare legs, and he could see the man's pale, fleshy buttocks above his rumpled trousers, bobbing against her obscenely in the gloom. Horrified, he reeled back, but caught his heel on a protruding paving stone and fell gracelessly to the ground in a flutter of paper and spatter of ink. His predicament drew the attention of more of what he now realized were 'fallen women', who advanced on him. 

"Ooh, 'ere's a live one," one said, drawing near. "Fancy a go, do you, ducks?" she asked with a snigger, lifting the stained hem of her skirts suggestively. He scrabbled backwards into the filthy street, desperately snatching up his papers. Staggering to his feet, he ran, pursued by their laughter that burned his ears, and not stopping until he reached the Thames. 

He stood at the river's edge for some time, shaking and panting, breathing in great lungfuls of the reeking river air until his heart had slowed once again to something approaching its normal rhythm. Far down the river to his left, the lights of Westminster Bridge twinkled, mocking him. Gathering himself together, he headed north towards the Parliament buildings, hoping that he'd be able to flag down a cab to take him back to Cousin Henry's. 

"I wasn't ever very successful with the ladies," he admitted. _Or with anything else, when I was alive. _ "Since there were so many things I didn't think a gentleman of breeding was supposed to know about." _Oh, but I made up for it afterwards, I did, shagging and slaughtering my way through the ranks of London's whores. What else could I do, when Angelus kept both Darla and Dru for himself, leaving me to watch? _

"So it's almost like I'm your first, then," she said, her voice lilting with unreleased laughter. She leaned forward into his embrace and nipped at his earlobe. "In that case, I promise I'll make it really special for you." Her warm breath at his ear was dizzying, and he suddenly knew he would do anything for her, if only she would keep on touching him. 

Sure fingers tore open the foil covering the condom. "Here, let me help you with that." Allie reached for his zipper, and his flesh jumped at her touch. 

He slid his hand down behind her knee and lifted her leg, then let his hand glide up her thigh to lift her short skirt. She turned her face away when he would have kissed her, so instead he rained kisses down her neck to her shoulder, pushing aside the strap of her top. 

She didn't smell at all like-- _Don't think. Don't think. _ He braced his hands against the coarse bricks of the alley wall, feeling the gritty brick dust abrade his palms, and lost himself in her. 

"Ah, sweet... that's so good," she sighed, as her fingers raked his hair. Blood thrummed hotly in his veins. They rocked slowly in time together in pleasure against the rough wall, but under his lips the pulse in her neck forcibly reminded him of just how many other throats he had left torn and bleeding. 

Human senses and human desire warred with conscience, and lost. How could she possibly want him, knowing what he had been? 

Allie sensed the change in him, and she tugged his head back until he was looking into her eyes. "You think you want her to touch you like this. Gently." She trailed her fingers softly down his face. "Because she loves you." 

He flinched as though her fingertips would sear his skin. "Please, I..." 

"But I know what you _really_ need, Spike. I'll always know what you need." Under his shirt, her nails suddenly dug into his skin, drawing blood. He hissed, and lost all semblance of control, exploding into her. "Pain and pleasure, sweet. There really isn't anything else." 

But he still held her close for some minutes, after. 

------------------   
Yes, I know. Pink's _Misery_ isn't technically a country song. But Jake's a progressive guy, you know? It sounds miserable enough, ergo... 


	19. Convergence

**Convergence**

Spike awoke to a blinding headache, the sound of Clem's vibrant snores, the feel of a cool breeze playing over his skin, and the unmistakable sensation of a pointy piece of wood being pressed into his chest. 

"Wake up, Deadboy Jr.," a harsh voice demanded. "I want you to know who it is that finally dusts you." 

Spike lay quietly so as to not betray that he was conscious. _It_ has _to be evidence of divine intervention that no one's killed the whelp before now, especially if he's gotten into the habit of taunting vampires - or in this case, someone he thinks is a vampire. Still, as long as he thinks so... one quick thrust and I'm free, though not so neatly as before. Why not just let him and get it over with? Plus - no more hangover. _

"You really should stop and think twice," he said dryly, without opening his eyes. "Kill me and you might accidentally be doing me a favour." 

"Save me the 'tortured vampire' routine," Xander retorted. "I've seen all the movies." 

_But you're not very observant, are you? _ Spike seized the stake in one hand from where it was positioned against his chest and sat up in a rush, pushing Xander away with his other hand. Xander stumbled back in the darkness and fell over. As he tried to recover his footing, Spike slipped out of the sleeping bag. For the first time he was glad that his new sensitivity to cold meant he'd taken to sleeping in his jeans, even with the sleeping bag - it would have been damned annoying to have to face the boy with his wedding tackle hanging out. 

Xander scrabbled crabwise across the floor trying to retrieve the stake, but Spike got there ahead of him and kicked it out of his reach. Before he could stand again, Spike had him by his throat and the front of his shirt and was lifting him to pin him firmly against the wall. 

"Chip--" Xander managed to choke out as his air supply was severely restricted. 

"Ah, the chip. Funny, that. Seems it doesn't work any more." He favoured Xander with the best evil grin from his repertoire and permitted himself another few seconds to enjoy his struggle before releasing him and stepping away. _Can't fault his courage, at least. Doesn't give up even when he thinks I could kill him. _

"Speak your piece and get out, then. But I'm warning you - if you wake Clem, I'll tie you up and make you listen to him debate the merits of natural versus artificial sweeteners in sodas." 

"You drove Anya away from me--" he began, before Spike spun back to confront him in the gloom. 

"Oh no. Of all the sins I have lined up to atone for, I'm not taking on that one. That one's all yours." 

Xander only stared at him as though he'd grown a second head. "Sins?" 

"Oh come on, think!" Spike complained, exasperated. "Vampires tend to sleep in the day and don't feel the drafts; Spike's napping at night and has himself a cozy little 'Camper's Village' sleeping bag and propane space heater. Ergo..." 

"You're... not a vampire any more." His tone made it more of a question. 

Spike brought his finger to his nose. "Got it in one. Courtesy of a poorly worded wish I'm as human as you now. Though I don't really think of you as an exemplar of the species, you know. Did Angel one better at his own game," he added in an undertone. He reached to pick up the stake from the floor and hand it back. "Here. You can probably still kill me with this if you try hard enough - though I warn you, it'll be messier." 

Xander took the stake and held it loosely in his fingers as though he had forgotten what it was. He stood there without speaking for so long that Spike began to think he'd been hit with some sort of paralysis spell. 

He took a moment to shrug into a clean shirt. "If you're going to take up space, make yourself useful at least," Spike said as he fastened his buttons. "There's beer in the fridge." 

Wordlessly, Xander complied. They ended up seated facing each other across the darkened crypt. "Buffy still won't sleep with you," he blurted suddenly. "It's still wrong. Just because you're not a vampire any more..." His voice trailed away. 

"You know, you always were a sanctimonious git, Harris," Spike observed conversationally. "You're right. Boffing an ex-demon is absolutely one of the worst things you could do - unless, of course, it's your chance to get laid." He leaned forward, a note of query creeping into his voice. "She must have seemed like a schoolboy's wet dream come to life, hey?" 

"Shut up!" Xander cried, getting to his feet. 

"Or what? You'll kill me? Go ahead and try. It's not like I'd be the first human who died because of you, would I?" 

Xander sank back into his chair, deflated. He dropped his face into his hands. 

"Truth is, you never were enough of a man for her," Spike went on. "She deserves so much better than you - and you know it, don't you? Being with her makes you a better man, but you never would have been good enough. How could you even think you could deserve someone like her?" All through this harangue, Spike's voice had grown softer. Xander finally lifted his head again to see that the vampire - ex-vampire - wasn't looking at him any more at all. His head was thrown back in his chair. 

"Who are we talking about here?" Xander ventured. 

Spike sat up straight again and sipped morosely at his beer. "All the same boat, innit? The women we love don't want anything to do with us. Sad part is, we know they're probably right." 

"Speak for yourself," Xander retorted. "At least I never tried to rape Anya." 

It was Spike's turn to drop his eyes. "Buffy forgave me. No--" he began before Xander could comment. "It isn't up to you - or me - to decide whether she should or not. Or whether I deserve it or not. I know I don't. You think I don't replay that day over and over in my head, wishing I could go back and change everything? I know what I did. I can't forget it. To the last despicable detail, I know." He stabbed the fingers of his free hand viciously at his forehead as though trying to drive out the memory. "Do you think I can't hear her crying and screaming for me to stop every damned minute I'm awake? And yet being awake is better than the nightmares..." 

Xander squirmed in his chair, unable to look at the naked pain revealed in Spike's face. _This is wrong. It shouldn't make a difference to me that he's changed. But it does. _

Spike lifted haunted eyes to him. "I'll pay every day of my life for what I did. Will you? I don't think you have the slightest idea just how much you hurt her by walking away as you did." 

"I know she went back to being a demon to take vengeance on me," he replied angrily. 

"She tried, you know. Not one of your friends was willing to wish you harm - though I don't clearly see how you deserve such loyalty. So instead, she decided that I could be her vengeance - her justice. At least, that was what she had planned. Let me tell you what happened." 

"I don't need you to tell me. I saw it, remember?" 

"You see, but you don't understand what you see. I was only there for a spell or something to ease my own pain. What happened between us was about finding comfort and a chance to forget. Then there was a little too much Jack and a little too much truth. It wasn't about you at all." Spike contemplated his now empty beer can and let it fall to the floor. Behind them, Clem's stentorious snores filled the quiet air, undisturbed by their presence. 

"And after all your belligerent posturing when you found us there, I was perfectly willing to wish you hurt - and she wouldn't let me." He paused to let Xander absorb this last. He looked properly shell-shocked finally, Spike decided. _About time you got the idea. _

"Even now that she's got her demon mojo back - making the status of her own soul questionable, mind - she still loves you, you ignorant sod. If she didn't, you wouldn't have been able to hurt her so." 

"But I would have hurt her more by staying," Xander insisted. "I couldn't do that to her. Look at what happened to my parents." 

"I have. I was there long enough to see a bit of that horror show. But unless you've taken to being an abusive drunkard or a sharp-tongued harridan, you are not either one of your parents." 

Xander's anger seemed to have completely faded away, and Spike took some pity on him at last. "It isn't love without risks. Can't be, when you open yourself that completely to someone else. If it's real, love is going to hurt sometimes - make you crazy, make you angry - and the times when it doesn't are worth all the others." 

"But I can't even find her!" Xander protested. "I want to tell her all those things and somehow make it right again - but I don't even know where she is." 

"There must be a summoning spell for vengeance demons," Spike offered. "Surely Rupert could ferret something out, if you contacted him." 

"Would she even respond to a spell done by a man?" 

"Do you want her back or not?" Spike asked. "Stop trying to think of reasons it won't work. Get Buffy to do it for you, then." 

"But she'd have to have been..." Xander looked at Spike with sudden understanding that transformed slowly into pity. 

"I'm sure I've dealt her more than sufficient hurt to make it official enough for Anya's liking," he said wearily, irked that the boy should now pity _him_. "Now if you're not going to kill me, sod off. I've got things to do." 

Spike watched him silently as he got up to leave. "Harris," he said suddenly as Xander was pulling the door open. "I haven't thanked you yet for saving the world." 

Xander turned back to face him, his face open with wonder at gratitude from such an unexpected source. "I was just the guy on the spot. Anyone else probably could have done it." 

"I couldn't have. And it _wasn't_ anyone else." 

He ducked his head, embarrassed. "Yeah, well... you're welcome." He pulled the door closed quietly behind him, leaving Spike alone in the dark with his thoughts. 


	20. Encounters and Interludes

Hello, it's me. Your absent author. *g* 

You know, the next time I do this, I'm going to have the whole story actually written _before_ I start posting it... That, and not have a life for a while. There are only a couple more crises to go. Rest assured, we are more than halfway through, and everything is coming together as it should. Really. Don't let things you read make you panic. Much... 

Oh - and tell me, are you still reading this? Please, tell me...   
------------------ 

**Encounters and Interludes **

There was a certain rhythm to his work, Spike decided, that helped the time to pass quickly. If the bar were busy enough, the buzz of conversation and the pounding music could almost drown out the endless cacophony of voices in his head. It was a good night, then, when he didn't think of her more than four or five times an hour. 

Spike finished his sweep around the depths of the bar and around the perimeter of the sunken dance floor. He seldom had to intervene; the presence of Jake's boys in black was usually enough to deter would-be troublemakers. _Not much different from being a master vampire controlling the minions, in fact,_ he reflected. Ninety-five percent of the control was just putting on a good show of presence. It was the other five percent that erupted into ninety-five percent of the trouble. But tear off a few minions' heads - or give a belligerent drunk an obvious bum's rush to the door, he amended - and that usually would take care of it. 

Corey moved to meet him as he headed back to the door. His eyes were bright with excitement. "Man, you just missed the weirdest thing! These two guys walked by, and I swear it looked like they didn't have any reflection. I don't know how they--" 

"What two guys?" Spike interrupted. The short hairs on the back of his neck lifted, a sensation that unnerved him. He followed the line of Corey's outstretched arm to see two men moving into the crowd towards the back of the cavernous bar. 

"What's the big deal?" Corey called after him curiously, as Spike hurried off in pursuit. 

_Hope you never find out, mate. _

As he followed the two men across the floor, Spike realized that they must have some sophistication and experience. Many vampires never developed enough control to learn how to adopt a human face, yet these two were moving amongst what must seem like an unlimited buffet without so much as a growl or a flash of fang. He drew closer in an attempt to overhear their conversation, while simultaneously trying to maintain the guise of being on his regular rounds. 

They'd even gone so far as to dress with some thought to blending in to their environment, Spike noted. Both wore jeans and tee shirts, to which one had added a pair of worn snakeskin cowboy boots. The other sported a sleeveless red plaid flannel shirt over his tee, though he'd left it unbuttoned. 

"...such a good idea," Boots was complaining to his companion as Spike caught up with them. "There's all that blood back at the clinic, if you're so hungry." 

"You ever actually taste that stuff?" Flannel retorted, echoing Spike's thought in memory of the chemical tang of bagged blood. "All those preservatives ain't good for you, either. And it's cold." 

"Doc won't like this," Boots warned. 

Flannel's fist shot out suddenly and snatched a handful of Boots's shirt, drawing him close. "He won't ever find out, though... will he?" he hissed. "Because no one's going to tell him." Boots stammered his agreement. "Besides, when did we start taking orders from _humans_? They're supposed to be _food_." 

"It's not him I'm worried about, Leroy," Boots choked out as best he could with his shirt twisted tightly at his throat. "It's the ones he's working for - didn't you see what they did to Manny?" 

For a moment Flannel's - Leroy's - grip on his partner's shirt slackened as he contemplated this, but his hunger overcame whatever good sense he might have had. He gave the other vampire a shake, and dropped him. "They're not here now, Spencer - but I'm _hungry_ now." 

_What self-respecting vampire still lets himself be called_ Spencer? Spike wondered to himself, giddily anticipating the fight to come. _It's damn near as bad as William. _

"Now let's split up - I don't feel like sharing." 

Spike hesitated for only a moment before electing to follow Leroy; Spencer's uncertainty, he hoped, would keep him from acting too quickly. Leroy had vanished around one of the dark-panelled corners in the labyrinthine recesses of the bar down by the dance floor. Drawing the stake from the sheath at his back, Spike approached as stealthily as he could manage, but he was almost certain his own heart pounded audibly in his chest. 

He eased slowly around the corner, keeping his back to the wall and hoping to catch sight of his quarry again. His eyes flicked over the crowd collected in the dim alcove, but Leroy seemed to have vanished as though Dracula weren't the only vampire who could turn to mist. _And I'll never get my eleven pounds from that ponce now, will I? _

Both Spike's thought and his breath were unexpectedly cut short by the sinewy bulk that seized him to spin him around and slam him face-first into the wall. His arm was viciously twisted up behind him, forcing him to drop the stake. 

"What are you doing, _meat_?" Leroy hissed in his ear, his face only inches away. His words were carried on the reek from a charnel house and distorted by jutting fangs. "Did you think I couldn't hear you? Did you think I wouldn't _smell_ you?" 

Spike's heart pounded in this throat, and he was paralysed with fear. Seconds ticked brutally by while the vampire applied even more pressure. 

Then as though something had abruptly shattered inside him, the fear vanished, leaving only a cold, clean anger in its wake. Spike snapped his head back into Leroy's face, catching him in the nose with a satisfying crunch that released a torrent of dark blood. He followed this move with his free elbow to Leroy's solar plexus, which, while not able to knock the wind out of him, at least stunned him momentarily and drove him back. 

Before he could recover, Spike spun around and leapt for him, driving him to the ground. Patrons scattered, snatching up their drinks as their struggle toppled tables and stools around them. They rolled, thrashing, up against the wooden railing around the dance floor, and Spike found himself momentarily on top, pinning the vampire to the floor - though he knew he couldn't hold him without drastic measures. 

Forgoing the throat as useless, Spike drove his thumbs violently towards Leroy's eyes instead. Even though they were somewhat shielded by the bony brow ridge, he soon felt the soft orbs rupture, spurting jelly-like fluid. The vampire screamed in pain and outrage under him, and Spike clung desperately to maintain his hold. 

He was reaching for the railing to break a piece of wood free when a familiar voice cried "Here!" and tossed him his mislaid stake. Spike plunged it home gratefully, and collapsed to the floor amidst gritty dust. Getting to his feet, he looked around to thank his benefactor - but a commotion near the fire exit drew his attention. Spencer - having seen his companion's fate - was trying to make a break out the back door. Alarms shrieked as he forced it open. 

Spike raced for the open door, heedlessly knocking people aside in his flight, and plunged into the darkened alleyway. His prey was only a few yards ahead of him, having stumbled over some garbage cans in spite of the advantage of his heightened senses, and was struggling to regain his footing. 

A wordless scream and a leap, the feel of the stake grating between Spencer's prominent ribs, and the second vampire, too, exploded into dust beneath him. 

The whooping alarms cut off abruptly. Movement by the exit caught Spike's eye and he scrambled to his feet, panting for breath. Jake stood there, filling the doorway, an unreadable expression on his face. 

"There are things about this town..." the big man began, then shook his head. "I think we both need a beer. C'mon back inside, and I'll draw you one myself - and then we'll both agree that I didn't see a thing." 

Spike just grinned assent, and followed him back into the bar. 

********** 

When he left the bar, he was still giddy at the after effects of dusting the two vampires - and the fact that Jake had added what felt like a substantial amount of extra cash to his pay envelope. Sleep seemed a million miles away. Buoyed by his fey mood, he wandered the emptying streets, looking for confrontation. He felt like nearly howling in frustration when nothing more came his way than propositions from the few prostitutes - of both genders - still working the street at this late hour. 

Salvation emerged in a tight skirt, crop top and heels from the door of the Orange Grove strip club. Allie's round face was creased in anger and she muttered to herself as she walked. She almost ran into Spike before she saw him. He caught her up about the waist and spun her about until she smacked at his arms to make him set her down. 

"At least _one_ of us is having a good night so far," she said, her frown traded for a smile he longed to believe was only for him. 

"Maybe we could go by your place," he ventured, emboldened by his adventures and her brilliant smile. "And I could tell you all about it." 

"I think we can make an arrangement," she replied, taking his arm. As they walked, she listened to him describe his evening, murmuring in awe and praising him in all the right places. 

"So you think the two of them were part of this blood theft operation?" she asked some time later, when he had finished his account. She steered him around a corner and down a side street. 

"Stands to reason," he replied. "I'm just sorry I wasn't able to get anything more out of them, but I didn't really have a chance." 

"There's a free clinic not that far from Desperados," Allie mused. "I go there sometimes. I wonder if that's the one they meant? 'Doc' could be any one of the doctors working there, though." 

Spike stopped walking abruptly and took her by the shoulders, seized with investigative fervour. "You know the place? Can we go by there and check it out?" His gaze became thoughtful. "I have to let Bu-... I have to let Dawn know." 

Allie eased herself free of his grip and tried to bring him back down to reality before he took off running down the street. "It's three in the morning, Spike. I'm sure they'll be asleep by now - even the Slayer. Can't you just go tell them in the morning?" She frowned slightly, looking up at him. "And why should you be the one who does all the work for her - for them?" 

He looked down, weighing her words, and she continued - "Besides, we're here." 

Spike glanced around. Instead of the apartment building he had imagined, they stood near a dingy motel nestled under a freeway off ramp. _Mot-l C-lif--nia_, buzzed the decrepit and flickering neon sign. 

"You live here?" he asked, confused. 

"I'd never live where I work," she replied brusquely. When he didn't comment, Allie looked up to catch his puzzled expression. "Oh Spike, sweet, you didn't think..." He looked away, setting his face like stone. "You did. Oh hon, I... I'm sorry. You're a sweet guy, but..." She reached for his chin to turn his face back to her, but his fingers closed gently on her wrist and pulled her hand away. 

"My mistake," he said coldly. 

"I did kind of wonder," she admitted. "A guy like you should be able to get any girl he wants." 

"Apparently not." 

"Look, we don't have to--" 

"No. No, I want to. I'll just try not to jump to any more conclusions." He laughed, without much humour. "This is something of a new experience for me." 

Inside the motel office they were met by an elderly Asian man whom Spike thought could be anywhere from sixty to over a hundred; he'd achieved that look of wizened age that probably wouldn't change until the day he dropped. 

"Hey Donnie," Allie carolled cheerfully. "This is Spike. We need a room." 

Donnie dropped a broken plastic key tag holding a single key onto the counter. "Twenty dollar for hour," he said, in a heavy accent. "Forty deposit." 

"You won't ever get much more conversation out of him than that," Allie confided in a whisper as Spike reached for his cash. "He ran this place for nearly forever, but his son Vincent's taken over most of the day-to-day operations now. Donnie just takes the occasional shift to give him a break." 

Key in hand, they headed for the upper level to find their room. Despite the overall state of disrepair, the room itself was in passable condition. Spike tried not to reflect on how many bodies might have coupled on the lone bed, or on how many times one of them had been Allie's. He didn't have long to think, though, because as soon as the door closed behind them, Allie was pulling his shirt over his head and reaching for his belt. He found that he needn't have worried about whether he'd be able to respond under such adverse circumstances; it seemed that even a cold imitation of love was sufficient to get his body going through the motions. She was more than skilled enough to see to that. 

Physically satisfied at least, he simply lay on the bed as Allie used the bathroom to retouch her appearance. Finding him still sprawled on his back when she emerged, she threw his jeans over his naked form. "Better get a move on, lover, or old man Tranh will charge you for another hour. There's no grace period here." He only closed his eyes, and she shrugged. "Suit yourself. I gotta go." 

Only once she was gone did he let the tears leak from his eyes to run back into his hair. 

********** 

He returned with her the next week for what would quickly become a regular assignation, once or twice a week as his funds permitted. On one occasion, they had found a couple of vamps trying to shake down Donnie in order to get some space to establish a new nest. After he had taken care of them, Vincent had offered them a room near the office that he guaranteed would be only theirs, available any time they wanted it. The offer didn't include a discount, however - gratitude only went so far on the Roosevelt strip. 

Allie never allowed him to kiss her on the mouth during their trysts, but let him do anything else he could pay for. She would even do to him such things as he felt he deserved, from time to time - though she did make him cover the cost of his own condoms at last, claiming with her characteristic breezy laugh that he would break her financially. 

It was enough, for the present, that she was his friend, sharing any number of laughing conversations with him on the street corner after he got off work. If it made him uncomfortable that she'd often come from a bed somewhere with other men to be with him, he fought to not let it show - who the hell was he to judge? 

The sex was never anything but business between them, but they grew close enough that sometimes they would lie in bed for hours, after - just talking. Over time, he told her everything there was to tell about his first human life - his terminally ill mother, schoolmasters who beat him bloody, and the mindless authoritarianism and repression of Victorian England. He even managed to tell her about Cecily and how her cruel words had made him almost grateful for his death at Drusilla's hands. He found being able to share it with someone somehow reduced that old pain further, until he thought he might almost be free of it. Quite often the emotional release he got from trusting her with himself gave him more pleasure than the sexual. 

In return, she gifted him with the drunken father, the sister who had run away from home, the uncle who had abused her, and the junkie lover who had abandoned her to the streets. But she never cried in front of him. 

On more than one occasion, he found himself whispering endearments to her - words that he had originally meant for someone else. But he never made the mistake of calling her by that someone's name. 


	21. Desperate Measures

Well, we are into the final stretch at last. Five or six more chapters, I expect, and some of them are already written, you'll be glad to know. Unfortunately, the very next one isn't among that number. *sigh* It's on the list. 

I don't know how likely it is that I'll be able to pull this all off before the season (and series) finale, but it's not like you're all desperately waiting to see how I deal with events of the _real_ season, after all. 

There have been days that I've wondered if it wouldn't be better to just give up on this story - it's disappointed me in a number of ways - and yet, I can't help but write what comes. So I promise you, faithful readers, that I'll take you through to the end. Chances are it will pale in comparison to what Joss & co. have waiting for us, but that's okay. Eventually, we'll all be wanting all the Buffy we can get, when those first cravings hit. *g* And there _are_ some things I wish they'd done differently. This is my chance to address that. 

Okay, that's enough late-night aimless muttering. You're here for a story, I believe...   
--------------- 

**Desperate Measures**

"I think I've got a way to get in touch with Anya," Xander said without preamble, as Buffy held the door for him to enter. He set down a large paper bag, and then shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the rack by the door. 

"That's great news," Dawn said as she came into the living room. "How are you going to do it?" 

"I'll tell you in a minute," Xander said to her, but still looking at Buffy. "But first, we need to - I need to clear the air a bit between us. 

"Buffy, I know I haven't always been the best of friends the past couple of years," he said, as he took her hands in his. "Starting with deciding to bring you back. If I'd had any idea how much we'd be hurting you..." 

She smiled gently. "I know. But I am glad to be alive again, and among friends and family. Really." Behind her, she could sense invisible tension draining out of Dawn. _After all this time...but I suppose you have a right to be worried that I might still want to leave you. _ "So tell us the big plan." 

Xander let go of her hands and began to pace, gesturing emphatically as though trying to sell a client on something he feared might be a little questionable. 

"I want her back. I knew what she'd done before, and I loved her anyway. I don't care what she's been doing for the past year - I still love her, and I want her back." He pressed on before Buffy could protest. "And before you say anything, I know _exactly_ how much of a hypocrite that makes me. I'm in love with a demon - and I don't care." Xander laughed - a more true and easy laugh than she'd heard from him for some time. "So I guess what I'm saying is, if something - or someone - was making you happy, you had every right to have what you wanted. Listen to your heart, grab it with both hands, and don't let the idiots around you take it from you. Even if the idiots are your friends - or yourself." 

He stopped pacing, and turned to face Buffy directly, catching her eyes with his. " I know it's partly my fault that you couldn't tell us about Spike. You would have been right if you thought I couldn't deal with it. I've said and done a lot of things - cruel things - without thinking. I want you to know that I'm sorry. What happened between Anya and Spike that night... I've come to terms with it. The fact that he tried to rape you still makes me crazy - but I can accept it now when you tell me that it's none of my business. If it helps you to forgive him, then that's what you should do." 

Buffy felt perilously close to tears, but swallowed the harsh lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. _No. I made the right choice. I have to believe that, or everything comes undone. _

"So how can we help?" she asked, ignoring Dawn's troubled expression as she forced lightness into her voice that she didn't feel, to turn the conversation away from this emotional pitfall. 

Xander seemed to sense her discomfiture, and returned to his original subject. "I got Giles to find me a spell to summon her. To summon Anyanka, I mean. I need you to perform it." 

"Did you see Willow?" Dawn demanded, leaving Buffy grateful for a momentary chance to collect herself again. "How is she?" 

Xander sighed, his earlier hopefulness dimmed as he reflected on his oldest friend. "We talked, a little, the few times I was there. She's still taking classes, and I think she's enjoying having a huge load of homework again." He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "But god, it hurts so much to watch her trying to have an ordinary conversation. The slightest slip seems to set off that damn geas spell. And yet, it's like she _wants_ it to hurt her, as if somehow that will punish her _enough_ for what she did. I still think it was wrong to let Giles take her away." 

"You see?" Dawn grumbled. "Even Xander agrees with me. We should make him lift the spell." 

Buffy shook her head unhappily. "Dawnie, I don't like it any better than you do, but if it's what Willow has decided she has to do, it isn't up to us to interfere." 

"How do we know it's really what she wants?" her sister demanded. "For all we know, that coven is just as bad as the Watcher's Council. Maybe she's been forced into it. I say we demand to talk to her and find out what's really going on." 

"Maybe _demand_ is a little strong," Xander said. "But we really should do _something_ for her, Buffy." 

"All right," Buffy said, waving one hand to signal surrender. "You win. Tomorrow we'll all go to see Giles and Willow, and tell them how we feel. But before then we've got this spell to work on. Tell us what we have to do." 

********** 

"And this can't be done on the stove in the kitchen... why, again?" Dawn asked, surveying the living room with a critical eye. The coffee table, with a brass brazier set in the centre, had been pulled into the middle of a hastily cleared space that only served to let her see how much more cleaning she would have to do. Bits of tinsel, wrapping paper and dried pine tree needles were revealed where the rug had been pulled back to make room. _Christmas tree dandruff; the gift that keeps on giving. I just hope it doesn't catch fire. _

"Because if it does work and summons Anya, she's likely to be pissed off," Buffy pointed out, looking up from where she knelt to arrange various pouches and plastic zipper bags of powders and herbs. "Not something I want to face in a confined area." 

"Not to mention that if it goes wrong and just gets all stinky, it isn't something you want near your food," Xander added, practically. 

"Right. Point taken," Dawn replied. 

Buffy sighed. "Not that I don't feel it every day, but it's times like this I _really_ miss Willow. I'm afraid I'm going to blow something up." 

Xander looked alarmed. "You're the only one who can do the spell, Buffy," he insisted. "Because you're the only one who'll have the right vengeance-y vibe." 

A frown creased her features. "I told you before, Xander, what happened between Spike and me is in the past now. I forgave him, and it's over. I'd like to forget it. If a 'vengeance-y vibe' is what's needed, maybe you should be the one doing the spell. You certainly have something against him." 

Xander had the grace to look somewhat shamed. "I still think he should pay for the things he's done - maybe he should still die for it all - but I don't have to be the one who does it any more. If he comes near you, _I_ think you should deck him, but I don't need to. He's suffering more from his conscience than from anything I could ever do to him." 

"What do you mean? He seemed fine the last time I saw him." 

"Are you nuts, Buff? The guy's tortured. I never realized... Angel never seemed to show it. But then, he had a hundred years to learn how to deal with it. Spike's had what? A couple hundred _days_?" He shook his head. "Poor bastard. Not that I care, or anything," he was careful to add. 

"Whoa! Stop. Rewind," Dawn exclaimed. "When did you go to see Spike?" 

"I went to kill him about a month ago," Xander admitted. "For everything - but mainly because of Anya. Imagine my surprise when I found out he'd become human." Buffy and Dawn only nodded, each recalling how they had learned of the former vampire's transformation. 

"Then somehow instead of killing him, I ended up talking to him. And he - he really listened. And suggested I try a summoning spell..." 

"This whole thing is _Spike's_ idea?" Dawn interrupted, incredulous. 

Xander nodded. "He seemed to think that you'd be the best one to pull it off, Buffy." 

She collapsed into the couch. "Yes, he hurt me, but... we hurt each other. I don't understand. Does he _want_ me to hate him? Because I'm tired of that. I don't want to be that person any more." _Don't want to be the person who used him... blamed him... beat him. _ "Maybe Dawn has an unfaithful boyfriend she hasn't told us about." 

"You wish," Dawn retorted. "Nope. Unless you count creepy Phil Letourneau, who's always after me to borrow my algebra notes - but I don't think he deserves to be eviscerated just for that." 

Xander began to look panicked. "Buffy, please - you're my only chance." 

She sighed, and held out her hand. "Give me the spell. I don't promise anything." 

He handed over the much-crumpled paper he'd coerced Giles into writing out for him, and the two of them sat back to let Buffy work. 

She took a small bunch of herbs from one of the plastic bags and crumbled them between her fingers into the brazier. Consulting Giles's handwritten instructions, she then pinched small amounts of various powders in with them and lit a match. The dry materials caught instantly, and the room soon filled with a sweet, pungent smoke. 

"Okay everybody, cross your fingers. I hope this works." She took a deep breath, and began the invocation. "O Anyanka... I beseech thee... In the name of all women scorned..." Buffy paused for a moment to add another bit of the crumbled herbs to the fire. "Come before me." 

Nothing happened. 

Xander and Dawn looked around expectantly. "Is that it?" Dawn asked, confused. 

"That's all that Giles gave us," Buffy replied, equally puzzled. "I don't know what else to do." 

"Maybe you have to say it more than once," Xander suggested. 

"Do you know what I do to men who use that spell?" the demon Anyanka asked, as she walked through the door from the kitchen. "Shall I describe all the excruciating steps it takes to disembowel them?" 

"Anya!" Xander exclaimed, on his feet in a moment. 

"Anyanka," she corrected coldly. "It's who I am, after all." 

"Anya," he repeated, stubbornly. "I didn't--" 

"Oh, I know. You had Buffy do it. But there isn't an ounce of vengefulness towards Spike in her - she's halfway to being in love with him. Only a fool wouldn't see it." She looked Xander up and down impersonally. "So I understand your problem." 

Later, when the adrenaline subsided, Dawn would reflect that whatever real faults Xander might have, cowardice wasn't one of them. With only a glance aside to Buffy, he strode past her to take Anya's veined hands in his own. She didn't seem welcoming, but she didn't pull away, either. 

"I asked her to summon you because I didn't know any other way to reach you. I just needed to be able to tell you myself how sorry I am - and that I miss you." 

"Sorry? You're _sorry? _ Oh, that's just wonderful. That makes everything all better. It completely erases the humiliation and emotional anguish I experienced." She leaned forward, letting the demon's face drop away, the better to sneer at him. "Notice my use of a sarcastic tone of voice to convey a meaning opposite my words." 

Buffy started forward, but stopped when Xander didn't flinch. 

"I deserve that and more, I know," he said. "And while I don't have any right to ask... I believe I can do better. Give me a chance, and let us start over, because... I'm a better man when I'm with you." 

"Yes, and you proved that so admirably when you left me alone only minutes before our wedding," she snapped - but she still didn't pull her hands out of his gentle grip. 

"Anya, I was scared, and I was wrong to wait so long to tell you - but I don't think I made the wrong decision. Maybe I'll never understand how much I hurt you, but I knew if we went on I'd end up doing even worse to you." Xander held her hands tightly, desperately willing her to feel his remorse, to know how much he wanted another chance. 

"If you'd really loved me, you would have trusted me enough to tell me." Her voice now held only a trace of anger, and more than a little sorrow. 

"I know. I should have. I don't know if I can ever make it up to you, but I still hope you'll let me try." Xander reached to caress her cheek, and Anya leaned into his hand. "Let me be the man I should have been. I don't ..." --his voice broke-- "don't care anymore that you've become a demon again." 

"Not for long," she murmured, almost too low to hear, before looking up at him again. "You even took that from me. I haven't been able to kill anyone. All I can see is your stupid, earnest face, promising you'll love me forever - and I can't do it. Halfrek tells me D'Hoffryn is going to have me removed from the ranks. Demoted." She pulled away from him and wrapped her arms around herself for solace. "If I can't even have that, then what good am I? Vengeance... is who I am. I don't know who I would be without it." 

Xander came up behind her and enfolded her in his embrace. "I don't know - but I'll bet you're someone wonderful. I'd like to be there when you find out." 

When it became clear that Xander wasn't going to be in mortal danger - except maybe to his heart again - Buffy motioned silently to Dawn and the two of them withdrew into the kitchen. 

"It'd be hard to be an ordinary person in a relationship like that, don't you think?" Dawn observed idly, peering back at the couple through the open doorway. "You'd always wonder if your partner was holding back, trying to protect you or keep you from finding out the truth about them." 

Buffy felt as though a hot and heavy stone had lodged deeply in her chest, squeezing her heart. Her lungs seemed suddenly starved for breath. _I know. It would make you resentful, finally, and tear the two of you apart - no matter how much you wanted to love each other. Nobody understands what it's like to have to make the kind of decisions I do - to go out at night and hunt, and kill, and kill again - every night, over and over to keep the world running the way it should. You become Death... _

"Death is your art. You make it with your hands, day after day." 

She closed her eyes. _He understood. He's always understood. _ "But now he's just another ordinary man," she whispered, not intending to be heard. 

Dawn looked at her sharply. "You always said you wanted an ordinary boyfriend. There's nothing ordinary about a guy who used to be a vampire." 

Buffy snorted laughter in spite of herself. "Ordinary's overrated. And since when have you tried to steer me _away_ from Spike? You've been his biggest ally since he's been back - getting him to give you fighting lessons, setting us up for dinner..." 

"Just playing devil's advocate for a minute. A little reverse psychology. Is it working?" 

"I am _really_ regretting getting you into that course," Buffy sighed. 

"So... both hands?" Dawn asked, pressing her for a definite response one way or the other. 

"Both hands," Buffy nodded, feeling more peaceful than she had in some time. "I have to talk to Spike." 

As if in answer, the phone rang. Buffy frowned, and reached for the handset. _I don't believe in ESP - and Spike doesn't have a phone anyway. _ "Hello? Hey Giles... no, we were just... oh god..." Buffy shut her eyes and just let him talk. 

Dawn hovered impatiently until Buffy set the phone back in its cradle and turned to her, her eyes huge in a face gone suddenly waxen and still. 

"We won't be going to see Willow and Giles at home tomorrow," she said, her voice breaking. "They're at the hospital. Willow tried to kill herself tonight." 

Buffy had paled so dramatically under her tan that Dawn was afraid she might collapse on the spot. Slipping a supportive arm around her sister's waist, Dawn led her back into the living room where Xander and Anya remained deep in now only occasionally acrimonious conversation. 

"Uh, guys?" Dawn ventured, trying to gain their attention. "Major bad news." She settled a near-catatonic Buffy on the couch and explained - at which Xander dropped his face into his hands. 

"Look on the bright side," Anya observed with jarring cheer. "At least she's not trying to take the world with her this time." 

Dawn wondered if Xander might be having second thoughts at this point. 

"I don't understand" Xander cried suddenly, throwing up his hands. "Why would she do this? Why _now_?" 

"Maybe she thinks she deserves to die," Anya put in, eager for conversation with former friends after so many months of self-imposed banishment. "After all, she did destroy my entire store... and nearly the world," she added after Xander's admonishing glare, clearly confused as to what exactly she had said _this time_ that might have triggered it. 

"As much as it weirds me out," Dawn said, "I have to agree with Anya. Willow's been carrying all that grief for Tara, and I doubt she's ever really dealt with it." She began to tick off points on her fingers. "She's _never_ been able to deal with loss - remember all the wackiness when Oz left? When she pulled all that power from Giles last year and experienced the pain of the entire world, her solution was to destroy _everything_ so she _wouldn't_ have to feel it anymore. And on top of that, there's the guilt over killing Warren and that warlock guy. Maybe she thinks she'd be doing us all a favour by killing herself." 

"How can she think that would make anything better?" Buffy protested, finally emerging from her shocked silence. "Doesn't she know what she means to us? Doesn't she care what losing her would do to us?" 

Long seconds ticked by before Dawn replied. 

"Did you?" 

Buffy gaped as though Dawn had sucker-punched her. 

"Last year all _you_ could think about was how terrible it was to have to be alive again; how much you missed heaven. You even thought that a delusion of being in an asylum was better than reality." Dawn bit down hard on the inside of her bottom lip before she could go any further. _This is_ supposed _to be about Willow. Speaking of still not dealing well..._

She softened her tone. "My point is, when you were feeling your worst, how much were you able to think about what it was doing to the rest of us? Willow isn't going to be, either. Suicides rarely think about the people they leave behind." 

"Will you both stop talking like she's already dead!" Xander rebuked them. "There has to be _something_ we can do. Can we go see her?" 

"They're only keeping her overnight," Buffy said, glad to have a reason to direct the conversation away from her own distraught behaviours of the previous year. "But you're right. We've spent way too long letting Giles handle this. Willow is _our_ friend, and she needs to be reminded how important she is to _us_." Her face lit with sudden resolve. "I'm going to ask them to come and stay here when she's released, so we can spend more time together. After that... we'll see what happens." 

Their mood marginally improved by the promise of finally taking some action, the three of them made plans to meet again once Willow was home. 

Even Anya grudgingly agreed that forgiveness and an offer of help would be the human thing to do - even if she herself wasn't quite, any more. She vanished back to wherever she'd been keeping herself... but not before promising to meet Xander again in some neutral location. "But only to talk," she insisted. "Don't expect me to have sex with you again for some time." 

After closing the door on Xander's retreating form, Dawn joined Buffy on the couch. "Buffy..." she began, then paused. Buffy looked up, but didn't speak. She tried again. "About what I said earlier..." 

Buffy shrugged reservedly. "Don't apologise. You were right about how I behaved." She let a small smile cross her lips. "Though if you keep it up, I may decide to abdicate the position of responsible older sister, and send _you_ out to be wage-earner girl. At this point, returning to high school is actually starting to seem appealing." 

"You can have it," Dawn replied, relieved that they hadn't strained the bonds of their relationship beyond bearing. They sat quietly together for some time after that, until Dawn finally had to ask: "So what _are_ we going to do? About Willow?" 

"I don't know," Buffy admitted. "All the time last year that I was regretting being alive, I never once thought about ending my life myself. I'm not sure I _can_ understand what she's going through." Her expression grew thoughtful. "But I know someone who might." 

She got up and pulled her coat from the rack, shrugging into it. "I'll probably be pretty late, so lock the doors and don't wait up." 

********** 

Buffy stood at the door to the crypt, hand poised to knock, lost in memories. _He always knew when I was here. But that was before..._ Logically, she knew that nothing remained of the Slayer/vampire link, but she could almost _feel_ his presence, restlessly fizzing along her nerves as though transmitted by the very stones themselves. If she held herself _just so_, and _listened..._

Buffy shook her head. _Now I'm just being foolish. _ But the sense of him persisted. Before her conscience could tell her it was a bad idea, she had pushed open the heavy door and stepped into the crypt's cool interior. The last light of the winter sun slanted through the frosted windows, fashioning dim bars of gold in the dusty air before fading into the gloom. 

"Spike? Clem?" She wasn't sure if she was relieved or annoyed when neither of the crypt's occupants turned out to be at home. A prudent inner voice suggested she wait outside for one of them to return, but she ignored it and ventured further in, telling herself she was only looking for clues to Spike's whereabouts. 

Her eye was immediately drawn to a set of makeshift shelves stacked with a neat array of canned and packaged foods. Next to this stood a compact camping stove. A fat blue sleeping bag and a pillow were neatly laid out on top of one of the crypt's two tombs, and she smoothed the pillowslip absently with one hand. _I guess he never felt like restoring the lower level. _

A cold sliver of sensation slipped through her, and she spun around. _Vampire? Spike? _

"I told you, I smelled a girl over this way," a rough voice insisted from somewhere outside. 

"Aw, you're just thinking with your stomach again. I told you; we have to head over to the bars to get anyone good," came the retort. "No one hangs around the graveyard at night." 

Buffy slipped the stake from the waistband of her jeans and moved out of the confines of Spike's makeshift living space. _Won't_ you _be surprised. _

She'd left the door open wide behind her for the sake of the light it gave, and so was quickly spotted by the two vampires out for an early evening snack. 

"See! I told you!" the first one crowed triumphantly, and they advanced, growling with menace. She stood poised with her stake, ready to meet them and silently promising them the surprise of their unlives. Buffy wasn't sure who was more surprised, then, when they collided headlong with an invisible barrier in the open doorway. 

Not the stock of food, not the sleeping bag... not even having felt the new warmth of his skin and the pounding of his beating heart had brought home the changes in Spike so much as this. Vampires couldn't enter where he lived without an invitation. Whatever powers presided over the affairs of the world, they now recognized Spike's humanity. 

_As human as the rest of us. Maybe even more so than some of us, _ she wondered. _Because I've been having some doubts lately about Slayers. _

A wicked, humourless smile curved her lips. "Hello boys. You picked the wrong night, the wrong place, and _definitely_ the wrong girl this time. I'm in the mood for a good fight." And with that, she charged. 

********** 

_Didn't even break a sweat_, she complained to herself, surveying the dust now strewn around the stone steps. _How am I supposed to work off all my angst and frustration and fear if the bad guys are so easy to dust these days? _ Tucking the stake away again, she turned for the open doorway. 

"Oh, hello Buffy," said the cheerful voice form behind her, and she jumped as though she'd been goosed. 

"Clem!" she exclaimed, recognizing the figure approaching in the gloom. "You startled-- um, I was just--" _Did he see me coming out of the crypt earlier? _

"Looking for Spike?" he asked, not seeming to notice her nervousness. The loose-skinned demon, with his lidded basket slung over one arm, looked like some melted wax impression of a European villager back from a shopping trip. The occasional muffled _mew_ could be heard penetrating the dense wicker. "This is one of his work nights, I'm afraid. But he'll be back around three a.m. or so, if you wanted to wait." 

"Three a.m.?" she echoed, bleakly. _I can't wait that long. We need his help - and I think I might finally have the courage to say what I should have said the last time I saw him. But I don't know if it will last even that long. _

Clem hefted his basket suggestively. "I'm having a few of the fellows over for a friendly game, if you'd like to sit in. I could even spot you a tabby." 

_You might be a few players short tonight..._she thought, with a manic internal laugh, not able to frame a coherent reply. 

He waited patiently for her to respond. "It's kind of a joke, you see. Tabbies usually have stripes--" 

"Clem, where?" Buffy interrupted impatiently. "_Where_ is he working?" 

"Somewhere across town at a country-western bar. Rushmore or Roosevelt... or Republican... one of those streets." He sighed. "I keep telling him he should find himself a nice apartment over there, but he says he's trying to save money. Hey, maybe you can talk him into letting me buy him out of the crypt here. It's a sweet piece of real estate--" Clem found himself addressing Buffy's retreating back. 

"Thanks Clem," she called back over her shoulder. "I owe you one." 

"Make it a Persian!" he shouted after her, before turning to open the door, shaking his head. "Humans." 


	22. Dancing in the Dark

End-of-Buffy malaise has infected this chapter, I fear. It's quite dark - hence the clever title, of course. You know what I said about the end of the tunnel? Looks like there's another one before we're done. 

Just a content warning, before we begin. If you or someone you care about has ever experienced a suicide or an attempt, you may find this chapter disturbing to read.   
---------------- 

**Dancing in the Dark**

"Hi Spike," said the low voice behind him, barely audible over the throb of the sound system. He carefully adjusted his working smile, and turned to see who had addressed him. The smile slipped away, unnoticed. 

Brown hair tumbled in careless curls past her shoulders. Dark eyes ringed with smoky shadow appraised him thoughtfully, while deep red lips curved with silent promise. It took him several stunned moments to recognize her as one of Desperados' regulars. He'd never seen her wearing much makeup before, or such dark lipstick, and wondered what had made her choose to so dramatically change her appearance. 

"Do you want to... would you like to dance? With me?" she added, as though he might not be clear on that part. 

_What was her name again? Something exotic... Zuzana, Xena... Ah! _ "Zaria, pet - I can't. Supposed to be working, right? Jake would skin me." 

"Jake won't care," she insisted, but as though she'd had only enough nerve to go so far, her composure vanished. She glanced back anxiously at two other women across the dance floor; girlfriends who had no doubt encouraged her to this uncharacteristic display of boldness. They made encouraging faces at her fleeting look, and waved their hands in shooing motions to drive her back to him. 

The two of them stood with their heads together, whispering - one face coffee-with-milk, the other pale as cream, both looking as though they too had just stepped from the salon. He came to the conclusion that he was to be the test subject of her rather spectacular makeover. 

With some regret, he repeated his refusal. "Some time when I'm not working, pet, all right? My word on it." 

Zaria's face fell. "Sure. I understand. Some other time." Pressing her lips together to stop them trembling, she turned and walked away to rejoin her friends. 

Spike took the stairs to the main level in two large steps. Back in the bar proper he found Jake, an incongruous apron barely containing his ample girth, clearing and wiping tables. His confusion must have shown in his face. 

"We've got two more who didn't make it in tonight," he explained. "I'm just trying to keep up with the flow." 

Spike nodded his understanding, and just stood watching as Jake quickly and professionally moved through a series of tables. "Jake?" he asked finally, his hands thrust into his pockets to maintain a composure he didn't feel. "Mind if I ask you a question?" 

"Trouble?" he enquired mildly, not looking up from his work. 

"No. It's just that..." Spike glanced back over his shoulder again toward the dance floor where the women had closed ranks around their disappointed friend. "There's this bird's got it into her head that she'd like to dance with me. I turned her down, of course. I don't think she's the type to make a scene, but I'll--" Jake's laugh cut him off. 

"Dance with the girl if you want, Spike," he said, dropping the last dishes and waste into a plastic bin. "She thinks you're interesting. Which means she thinks Desperados is interesting. And _that _means she'll keep coming back. Consider it... good public relations. I bus tables when necessary, so you can dance with the girls." 

Spike looked at him, nonplussed. Jake just laughed again. 

"I'm not blind to the effect you have on some of the ladies, Spike. So take her and her friends around the dance floor a few times. Make 'em consider it part of the experience. I know I can trust you take care of them, without going too far." He picked up the bin, tucked it under his arm and gave the table in front of him a final wipe. "Besides, I _also_ know you've got something going with that nicely-packed little brunette that keeps meeting you on the street after work." 

He hadn't known that Jake - or anyone - had noticed, but was hardly surprised. Jake was one of the most discerning men he had met in any of the lifetimes he had lived. So if he thought the two of them might have something - _maybe we could, at that. Maybe it's finally time for me to stop chasing rainbows. I'll always love Buffy, always hold her in the very centre of my heart like a jewel - but maybe I'd serve her better if I don't try to see her any more. _ He snorted mirthlessly. _Never thought I'd ever see Angel's side in anything. _

Spike returned to the railing that overlooked the dance floor and folded his arms to lean against it, watching the dancers turn about the floor to the throbbing strains of yet another song of love and loss. _It isn't what Mother had in mind when I read Classics at Oxford, but I have a half-decent job that keeps body and soul together while I do the work I_ have _to do. It's time to let go of the past. _

He straightened, took a deep breath, and headed back onto the dance floor. _From murderer to gigolo. I guess that's progress, of a sort. _

He had no excuse any more. And before he'd been a killer, he'd been a gentleman, proud of his ability to treat the ladies properly. And he'd always loved to dance... in so many ways. 

He picked up bits of their conversation as he approached. 

"...wouldn't kick him out of bed for eating crackers." 

"Reneé, sugar, you wouldn't kick him out if he'd brought a four-course dinner." 

Pale-skinned Reneé flicked her sun-streaked blonde hair back from her face with a practiced move. "Hell, Jade, he could spread me like the tablecloth--" A sharp elbow from Jade silenced her as Spike drew near. 

"It looks as though I'm able to redeem my word much sooner than I'd thought, pet," he said to Zaria, as all eyes locked onto him. "Still care for that dance?" 

They fell into a frantic commotion of whispering as soon as Spike led Zaria away by the hand to the dance floor. 

She leaned into his embrace, her generous curves moulding to him in a manner most pleasant. Without even trying hard, he could convince himself that it could be part of his redemption to make pretty girls happy by dancing with them. 

The teeming multitude on the dance floor ebbed and flowed about them; dancers coming and going but the numbers never seeming to change as the DJ overran the end of one song with the beginning of another, the words of his patter barely intelligible. "Here's a classic from Garth." 

_We call them cool   
Those hearts that have no scars to show   
The ones that never do let go   
And risk the tables being turned _

Zaria followed his lead smoothly about the floor, though clearly surprised by his skill. No reason she should be; the two-step was nothing more than a foxtrot done up in denim - but judging by the thrashing throng about them, even this revelation had escaped most of them. He could have done it in his sleep, and was quite convinced he'd soon be handed around to her clutch of curious girlfriends. _Maybe I should take up giving dancing lessons. M'sieu William, Professeur deDanse. Right. There's only one dance that really matters any more. _

_We call them fools   
Who have to dance within the flame   
Who chance the sorrow and the shame   
That always comes with getting burned_

********** 

_He_ can't_ be younger than me, not and be working here, _ she thought as she held her ID for the bouncer at the door. _So why does he look like such an innocent? _ He smiled brightly and stepped back to let her pass. It was the smile, finally, that triggered the memory. _He looks like Riley. Like Riley before he knew that his boss was going to go all Frankenstein on him; when he still believed in what the Initiative was doing. _ She shivered suddenly. 

"Are you okay, miss?" he asked, concern written clearly on his face. 

"Fine. I'm fine," she insisted. "But maybe you can help me. I'm looking for a guy I think might work here. He's probably going by 'Spike' these days--" 

"Spike? Sure, he's on tonight. We take turns working the door and the floor, so he'll be patrolling around in there somewhere." He jerked his thumb back to roughly indicate the bar's dark interior. 

Buffy thanked him, and passed through the entrance way. For all that it was a weeknight, the bar was packed. She pushed her way none too gently through the crowds, craning her neck looking for a familiar platinum head. The din of music and conversation throbbed, until her very bones seemed to pound with it. 

_But you've got to be tough when consumed by desire   
'Cause it's not enough just to stand outside the fire _

We call them strong   
Those who can face this world alone   
Who seem to get by on their own   
Those who will never take the fall 

The throng of people surrounding the railing above the sunken dance floor parted before her insistent elbows, and she leaned out to survey the floor. When she saw him, she wondered how she ever could have thought it would be difficult to find him. Among the Californian crowd ranging from the sun-bronzed skin of the beach crowd to the well-tanned leather of assorted outdoor labourers, his pale skin and white-blond hair stood out like a beacon lit from within. 

He moved easily about the floor and she fancied that she saw something of the man he must have been, once. Something Spike-the-vampire never would have shown her. _Or that I never would have let him. _ There was a touch of elegance to him, a quiet grace she'd rarely seen in anyone, and never before in him. Oh, he'd been elegant enough when fighting or fucking, but like an animal was, not like a man. This was something new. 

_I'm too late; he's found someone else. And why shouldn't he? It isn't as though I gave him any encouragement. He deserves to be happy, as much of any of us do. I hope she treats him well. _

She'd almost made up her mind to leave right then, to let him rebuild his life on his own terms. But she needed him too much, needed him to help Willow find a reason to live - because somehow _he_ had done so, despite carrying the guilt for a century of bloodshed. And if she were to be honest with herself - because she wasn't ready for him to be gone from her life. 

She wavered, torn between conflicting emotions, until he chanced to look up and see her watching him. 

_We call them weak   
Who are unable to resist   
The slightest chance love might exist   
And for that forsake it all _

They're so hell-bent on giving, walking a wire   
Convinced it's not living if you stand outside the fire 

Standing outside the fire   
Standing outside the fire   
Life is not tried, it is merely survived   
If you're standing outside the fire 

********** 

If he wasn't careful, he'd come perilously close to a moment's contentment - and who knew what the price would be for that. His gut churned with fresh guilt; he was supposed to be paying for his crimes, not frolicking about the dance floor, pretending to be something he'd never been even in life. And worse, in all this time he hadn't once thought of-- 

Buffy. She stood at the rail like an apparition, her eyes huge and dark in the dimness, running him through with her gaze. He froze. In the weeks since he'd seen her last, it seemed to him that she'd lost another ten pounds and uncounted hours of sleep. 

_Oh my poor love. You've worn yourself hard and thin on the strop of all that responsibility. _

In his arms, Zaria was saying something, but he couldn't hear above the blood suddenly roaring in his ears. Oh, he was love's bitch, all right, with just the sight of her enough to make him forget himself, forget every shade that haunted him. Knowing she'd only burn him again - but unable to stop throwing himself again and again into the fire - he was up the stairs and crossing the space between them before he could bring himself to remember why he shouldn't. 

_There's this love that is burning   
Deep in my soul   
Constantly yearning to get out of control   
Wanting to fly higher and higher   
I can't abide   
Standing outside the fire_

********** 

She watched him, amused, as he tried to decide what was worse; having her think he was here for the music, or admitting that this was, in fact, where he was working. He finally allowed his arms to fall to his sides, revealing the Desperados logo on the black shirt. 

_Standing outside the fire   
Standing outside the fire   
Life is not tried, it is merely survived   
If you're standing outside the fire. _

"Slayer," he said, pitching his voice to be heard over the noise. He cast his eyes down so as to not have to meet hers - it was too hard - and waited for her to speak. 

"Spike," she said, by way of reply, and then "Spike?" again when he didn't look up. 

He raised his eyes slowly and took refuge in levity. "Secret's out, I guess," he said more softly, in a momentary lapse in the music. "This is how I _really_ spend my nights." 

Buffy was glad to have an outlet in humour. "Yeah, it's a nice neighbourhood you've got here." 

He shrugged "Well, I'm working on it. Not really a Hell's Kitchen kind of vibe; more like Dante's Pantry." Buffy smiled blankly and he knew he'd trespassed too far outside her experience again. 

"I didn't mean to take you away from--" She gestured vaguely back at the dance floor, where the woman had been absorbed by a group of friends. 

"Zaria?" he asked, momentarily baffled, but then realizing what conclusions she must have drawn from his performance. "Oh. No, she's just..." How to explain? "It's nothing, really. Good customer relations, in a way." Was it just his overeager imagination, or did her face brighten a bit at this news? 

She couldn't just blurt out her main reason for seeking him out, so she began with a safe, neutral comment. "Thank you for the information you left us about the clinic. I checked it out." 

"Anything?" he asked. 

"No - but I'll be looking again. There's been another round of thefts this past week." 

"I heard. What happened to the fabulous Scooby research machine? Time was, you'd have had something minor like this wrapped up in three days." 

Buffy grimaced. "We've all been a little... preoccupied lately. Xander finally managed to convince Anya to let him have another chance." 

"Well _did_ he now? Good on the boy." He grinned. "Maybe she can manage to keep him home of nights, so he won't be creeping about with stakes where he shouldn't be." 

"He told me it was all your idea." 

Spike ignored this comment, in favour of another of his own. "And what about Red? Her computer was like breathing to her, once." 

"That's... part of why I'm here. _Please_, Spike." 

He led her over by the bar, where Joey looked up with a smile as they approached. "Joey, this is Buffy. See that she gets whatever she wants, on my tab," he said. 

She declined with a wave. "Spike, isn't there some place we can go to talk privately? It won't take long." 

He looked back over his shoulder and spotted Jake, still making the rounds and clearing tables. "Hey Jake," he shouted. "I need to step out for five, okay?" 

Jake waved a free arm unconcernedly, mouthed something resembling 'whatever', and carried on with his work. 

Spike reached to take Buffy's arm and then thought better of it, instead just waving her ahead of him to the door where she had entered. Corey greeted them with a broad smile. "I see you found him, then." 

"Eyes back in your head, Corey," Spike said, more sharply than he had intended. He led Buffy away from the door and the crowd, down to the corner of the building. "So. Tell me what's on your mind." 

"They really like you here," she said instead, out of the blue. "A lot." 

His enforced casual posture, hands in his pockets, was completely at odds with the turmoil he felt inside. "You say that like you're surprised, Slayer. You don't think I'm a likeable bloke?" 

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like--" 

"I know. You don't have to apologize to me; I haven't really been likeable for very long. Still takes me by surprise, sometimes." He turned his head to look back at the doorway behind them. "They're good people. Most of them have no idea what kind of a place they live in. Protecting them... seems the right thing to do." 

She looked up at him and only smiled, a little sadly. 

"Why are you _really_ here, Slayer?" he asked, suddenly not at all comfortable under her attention. 

"I have a name, Spike," she admonished gently. 

"Buffy," he said, looking away as though unwilling to let her see him shape her name with his mouth. "Why are you here? It wasn't just to check up on me." 

She was suddenly fascinated by the ground beneath her feet. "It's... it's about Willow," Buffy said reluctantly. 

"What's wrong with little miss witch, then? Last I heard, everyone was all set to welcome her back into the bosom of the Scooby family. All is forgiven, and all that." He could hear the resentment colouring his voice, but Buffy seemed too preoccupied to notice. 

"She tried to kill herself. Giles said - he said that she took a knife from the kitchen and just started hacking at her arms, _over_ and _over_ and--" Buffy mimed the actions unconsciously as she spoke, raking her nails down her own forearms hard enough to leave welts. "He said that if he hadn't been right there, and if they hadn't been so close to the hospital..." She drew a shuddering breath, and burst into sudden, shocking sobs. 

"God, Buffy... I'm so sorry." He gathered her close against him and held her as she wept raggedly, cursing himself for being an insensitive ass. "Of course I'll help you. You know I will. Anything I can do..." Any reply she might have made was lost as she mashed her tear-ravaged face into his shirt. 

He'd been around long enough to recognize a death wish. After all, he had his own personal one keeping him company of late, didn't he? The ones who only wanted attention, they slashed across their wrists - bloody and showy, but not actually life threatening unless no one found them in time. Those who_ truly_ wanted to die... they gashed the blades down the insides of their arms, and then a sick, slick little twist of the knife was all it took to sever the arteries almost beyond repair. That Willow had chosen, or had known... didn't give him much hope. 

Buffy quieted somewhat after a while, and pulled back from him. "I'm sorry," she hiccupped, as she began to wipe with her fingers at the ruins of her makeup. "I didn't mean to lose it like that. But I'm so scared for her, and I've had to keep it all inside and not frighten Dawn, and--" She started shaking again. 

"Hush, love. Hush," he said, patting gently and awkwardly at her face as though she were a frightened child to be soothed. "You don't ever owe me an apology for what you feel." 

"I just thought... because you've found some way to live with the things you've done... you might be able to help her." She pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose resoundingly. 

_I don't think you want to hear that I'm still alive because I'm too much of a coward to die. _ "I don't know if anything I can say will do any good - but I'll try. I give you my word that I'll try." Buffy looked around aimlessly for a place to drop her tissue, until Spike simply took it from her and thrust it into a front pocket of his jeans. 

"Giles is bringing her home to us tomorrow morning, when they release her. She's got an appointment scheduled with a psychologist in a few days - they said something about being chronically understaffed, so they couldn't keep her unless she was a danger to others as well. Maybe... maybe you should give her a day, and then come over." Another tissue followed the first. Spike took this one from her gently, and touched it to his tongue. 

"Whatever you think is best," he said, using the now damp tissue to blot away the streaks of makeup on her cheeks. 

"And maybe sometime after this mess is all over, you'd... come to dinner again. No trick invitations this time, and I promise not to be so... nervous about it all." 

He froze, contemplating the metaphorical knife poised to tear at his vitals again. "I don't think... that would be a good idea." 

"What? Why?" Her voice broke on the second word. "I don't understand. I thought you wanted--" 

"I wanted to win back my soul because I thought in that way I could be the man you deserve. Having done it, I know that I can't ever be the one you really want. I'm not the right man." 

An unstoppable geyser of words threatened to pour out of him, searing his soul. Could he bring himself to choose this pain now to avoid almost certain pain later? He took both her hands, pressing them insistently between his own as if hoping that just this once, she'd listen and take what he offered her. He selected every word now with utmost care. 

"I'll tell Angel... the demon's name and the price I paid. He can be human again for you. You can be together." He reached up and cupped her flushed cheek tenderly with one hand. "I think you know that's what you truly deserve." 

Her eyes brimmed over with fresh tears, and she couldn't speak. 

He was within a breath of taking it all back, of crying _no! He can't have you - you're mine, mine mine mine! _ when a piercing voice called his name from the street. Buffy hurriedly composed herself and tugged up the collar of her shirt to wipe her face. 

"Hey Spike," Allie said as she came up beside them. "Who's your friend?" She eyed Buffy speculatively and quickly came to her own conclusion, taking his arm possessively. "Are we still on for tonight, sweet?" she asked coquettishly, but her gaze was locked on Buffy. 

Buffy raised a quizzical eyebrow. Spike sighed. _This isn't the way I would have had you meet. _ "Buffy, this is Allie, who... works near here. We've been... dating. Allie, Buffy." _Miss Phillips, may I present Miss Summers? _

"So this is the famous Slayer," Allie said, straightening to make her marginally greater height perfectly clear. "Should I be impressed?" 

Buffy looked startled at having her identity so casually discussed practically in the middle of the street. 

"I told her what I was," Spike said, looking at Buffy. "Which rather entails finding out about you. No more secrets in my life." 

"Yeah, because you know what happens when you keep secrets," Allie laughed. "You end up like Spike's great-aunt Perpetua." She looked up under coy eyelids at Buffy, who just stood there, puzzled. "Gee, I guess he never told you about great-aunt Perpetua." 

"I'm beginning to realize there are a lot of things that Spike's never told me," Buffy said sadly, turning to go. "I'll expect you in two days, then." 

"Buffy, I--" _I'm sorry. But I know now that I was a fool to believe I could ever be the one for you. _ "I'll be there." 

With a small wave to Corey - who had been watching all this interplay with great interest - Buffy set out for home on the neglected streets, her heart beaten hollow with sorrow. 

Allie wasted no time watching her go but turned back to Spike, leaned heavily into him and murmured, "So what was that all about?" 

"She's got a friend going through some hard times," he replied, gently disengaging from her. "She just thought I might be able to help." 

"I always knew you were a generous guy," she laughed, and stepped back. "See you in a few hours?" 

He nodded, and watched as she, too, walked away from him. 

"Wish I had what you do with women, Spike," Corey observed wistfully as Spike headed back inside past him. 

"No you don't, Corey. No you don't" 

********** 

_Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?   
You been out ridin' fences for so long now,   
Oh, you're a hard one, I know that you got your reasons,   
These things that are pleasin' you can hurt you somehow. _

The last song of the night was always the same - Desperado was Jake's signature tune for his bar - and it was the signal for Spike and the others to begin rounding up the last of the hard-core drinkers and see them out into the night. 

_Don't you draw the queen of diamonds, boy, she'll beat you if she's able.   
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet.   
Now it seems to me some fine things have been laid upon your table,   
But you only want the ones you can't get.   
Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger,   
Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home,   
And freedom, oh freedom, well, that's just some people talkin'   
Your prison is walkin' through this world all alone. _

He had seen Zaria and her friends leave some time earlier; he had been both saddened and relieved when they had gone without any further attempts to get him out on the dance floor. 

_Don't your feet get cold in the wintertime?   
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine,   
It's hard to tell the nighttime from the day.   
You're losin' all your highs and lows,   
Ain't it funny how the feelin' goes away? _

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?   
Come down from your fences, open the gate   
It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you.   
You better let somebody love you,   
Let somebody love you.   
You better let somebody love you,   
before it's too late. 

Unlike the kitchen and wait staff, the bouncers only had to stay as long as it took to clear the building. After switching back into his own shirt, Spike slipped his pay envelope into his jacket pocket and headed for the street, where Allie would be waiting. 

********** 

Allie collapsed gracefully from straddling his hips to lie at his side. "Mmm... that was even more fun than usual," she said between heavy breaths. "You should have told me you wanted to play it rough tonight." She trailed the fingers of one hand down the score marks she had left on the hard planes of his stomach. "So that was the Slayer. You should run into old girlfriends more often." 

"She wasn't my girlfriend," he scowled, catching and holding her hand. 

"Well, whatever she was when you were sleeping with her, then. I can see why you need something different now - she sure seemed like a frigid, jealous bitch, if you ask me." 

Spike threw her off him and sat up, letting his legs fall over the edge of the bed. "I _didn't_ ask you." 

Allie was at his side in a moment, her tone now light and conciliatory. "Spike, sweet, I didn't meant it like that. I just think it's completely unreasonable that she shows up and expects to order you around as though you don't have a life of your own." Taking him by the chin, she turned his head towards her. "You really are still in love with her, aren't you?" 

He didn't reply, but that was answer enough. 

"What the hell did she ever do to deserve that kind of loyalty from you?" she demanded. 

"Allie," Spike said wearily. "Shut up. Or I'll have to give you something better to do with your mouth than talk." His hand slipped up over her mouth and he pressed her back to the bed. When she bit at his fingers he pulled his hand away quickly, but then she just laughed and hauled him down onto her, pressing his face into her throat. 

"Don't." He scowled as he pulled back from her. "I told you. It was a mistake." 

"I'm just playing, sweet." 

"Well, I don't feel much in the mood to play any more tonight." She'd been after him again tonight to tell her what it had been like - the killing, the bloodlust and the hyped senses. She never saw anything but the dark beauty of his former power, and nothing of the price. 

"I know you want to, Spike. Bite me again." 

********** 

There was something about Allie that was profoundly broken, he reflected, as he looked at the woman face down in the pillow next to him. Something beyond his small ability to repair. That she would even let down her guard enough to lie sleeping in his presence was a profound expression of trust, knowing her past. 

_Am I wrong, to think she needs me even a little? _ He sat naked at the edge of the bed and fumbled cigarettes and lighter out of his jacket pocket where he had tossed it carelessly to the floor some hours before. The cigarette lit in a hiss of flame and a crackle of burning tobacco, and Spike exhaled a silent stream of smoke into the darkness. 

---------------- 

Okay, before anyone accuses me of being a closet Bangel shipper all this time... you just have to trust that I really know what I'm doing. It's a long and painful road - but we're almost there. 


	23. The Vampire, the Witch and the Watcher

**The Vampire, the Witch and the Watcher**

He waited on the sidewalk in front of Buffy's house for a minor epoch before venturing up to the porch and ringing the bell. After a few moments Giles opened the door, but he made no motion to step out of the way to let Spike in. 

"What do you want, Spike?" he asked coolly. 

"I'm here to see Red." 

"Yes, well - I'm afraid there's been a change of plans--" the ex-Watcher began, only to be interrupted by Buffy's voice calling from up the stairs. 

"Is that Spike?" she asked. "Let him in; I'll be right down." 

Spike shouldered past Giles in the doorway and stood waiting at the bottom of the stairs for Buffy to appear. She came down the staircase, slowing before the bottom and eyeing him guardedly. "Spike." 

"Slayer," he acknowledged carefully. 

"Willow's upstairs in my room," she said. "We thought it would be better if I moved into my mom's old room for a while..." Spike nodded silent understanding. 

"I really must protest," Giles said, coming forward between the two of them. "The hospital psychologist will see her on Tuesday. Having Spike here-- I think this is a terrible idea." 

Spike snorted. "Yeh, you're not the only one. It is a terrible idea. Except everything you've tried up until now has been worse, hasn't it?" He looked up at Buffy. "I don't think it'll be very nice. Whatever you hear, don't come in." Spike took in Giles's guarded face with a wary glance. "And don't let _him_ in, either. Promise me, Buffy." 

She swallowed hard and nodded. 

Spike took the stairs past her two at a time. 

********** 

He knocked softly at Buffy's bedroom door. 

"Look, I told you, I don't need any more of your platitudes," Willow objected from behind the door. 

Spike pushed the door open and strode into the room. "Good, because I don't have any for you." 

Willow spun around from where she stood at the window, astounded. She wore white bandages wrapped neatly from wrist to elbow like the bracers of some ancient warrior, completely at odds with her faded jeans and fuzzy blue sweater. "Spike?" She came up to him, native curiosity momentarily overcoming her distress, and reached to touch his face. He closed his eyes to permit the inspection. "They told me what happened to you. I have to admit, I didn't believe it." 

"Yeh, well... it took me a while, too." 

Curiosity turned to suspicion again. "What are you doing here?" 

"Buffy asked me to come talk to you. I suppose she thought I'd have something helpful to offer you. I don't." 

He let his voice soften. "I was so sorry when Dawn told me how you lost your darling. The two of you were a right pair of turtle doves, always cooing over each other." 

As though his gentle tone unlocked something deep within her, Willow burst into tears. "I should have been the one who died, not her. Tara never did anything. She didn't deserve to die. It's not fair!" she wailed, clutching at him desperately and snuffling into the folds of his jacket. 

"Of course it isn't," he said, almost too quietly for her to hear. "It never is. The world isn't about _fair_. That's just something that children tell themselves when things go wrong. That they're not responsible." He tightened his arms around her. "It's _not_ fair. How can it be fair when you're a murderer and you're still alive?" 

"They _deserved_ to die!" she protested, pushing away from him and out of his embrace. Her pale face was mottled pink now in sudden anger. 

Now _we get to the heart of it. _ Spike kept his voice level. "Maybe so. But no one appointed _you_ executioner." 

"They were evil!" 

"And now they can't ever be anything else, can they? Whatever else you can say about them, now there are two fewer souls in the world. You tore them out of the world rather than let them live out their appointed spans - and you'll hear the screams of that rupture the rest of your life. Because no matter what you do now, you can't bring them back. No matter how much good you do, there's no way to right the imbalance you've left in your wake." 

"You don't understand. I feel it _all the time_. I don't deserve this. They were _evil_!" she insisted again. 

"Still had souls. Still had potential beyond what they were." He sighed. "Law of averages alone says I had to have killed evil men and women in all my years, along with the good. The rapist and the nun, the pederast and the paragon - their souls all sound the same to me now." The ghostly clamour rang louder now that he had turned his attention their way, but they had never been silent. 

"How - how many?" 

"What?" He refocused on her. 

"How many do you hear?" 

Spike closed his eyes wearily. "I've had some time to think about that. Before the day the Initiative captured me, I'd been a vampire for one hundred nineteen years, seven months and thirteen days. I didn't kill every day, but there were days I killed more than one, just for the sport of it. You're the one supposed to be the genius; you figure it out." 

Willow's eyes widened, and one hand crept up over her mouth. "Oh ..." 

"You're just one life, one soul. But if you live long enough then someday - _maybe_ - you'll have done enough to atone. Die now, and you have to face whatever it is waits for us with that stain on your soul. Don't know what it is that you believe, but I'm not looking forward to my end." 

Her face closed in anger - or possibly in fear. "Just because you buy into a fear mongering, paternalistic religion, one that usurped the proper place of the Goddess--" 

"What about the Rede?" 

Willow's mouth snapped shut so suddenly that Spike was afraid she'd bitten her tongue. The Wiccan Rede was the witches' code of conduct, a moral code equivalent to the Ten Commandments. That and the 'Rule of Three' were the only checks on her behaviour - if she chose to abide by them. 

_Bide ye the Wiccan Rede ye must,   
In perfect love and perfect Trust.   
Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill   
An' it harm none, do as ye will   
Lest in self defense it be,   
Ever mind the Rule of Three   
Follow ye this with mind and heart,   
Merry ye meet, and merry ye part. _

"You don't know _anything_ about it!" 

"I'll admit I have some impulse-control problems, but I've never been overly stupid," he observed mildly. "Your actions come back on you three-fold, isn't that it? Not brave enough to stick around and face the consequences of what you've done?" 

"It isn't like that! I should-- I should be _rewarded_ for taking out slime like Warren and Rack!" Willow raged. 

He shook his head. "Did you think you were special? That there was some accelerated course that you could take, so as to get it all over with sooner? Be free of it all and not have anyone throw it back in your face anymore?" 

Her face said all too clearly that _that_ was exactly what she had thought. "Don't you understand?" he said. "It never ends. Never. The guilt and the grief - they're always there, just under the surface, ready to bubble up at any time. You can learn to deal with them day to day, but they'll never leave you. It's never over." 

Willow lunged at him. "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" she screamed, beating at him with her bloodstained, bandaged arms. 

********** 

Above them they could hear strident shrieks, followed by a sudden thud that sounded as though something - or someone - had been thrown to the floor. Buffy cut Giles off before he could reach the stairs. 

"You're not going up there, Giles. Don't make me stop you." 

"He may be doing her irreparable harm!" 

Buffy closed her eyes and ran a hand over her weary face. "Giles. She's already tried killing herself. How much more harm can there be in letting Spike talk to her?" 

"That's all very well to say, but clearly he's gone far beyond talking. I can't let this go on." 

"And so you'll do what?" she challenged. "Use a spell to get me out of the way? Because you know there's no way you can beat me physically." She let the vague weary hurt she'd been feeling for months creep into her voice at last. "When did you stop being someone I could trust?" 

"You'd rather trust him, after everything he's done?" Giles retorted, undeterred. 

"Yes. Strangely enough, I trust him in this exactly _because of _everything he's done. There's no one else among us who can possibly understand what it feels like to have killed someone - and have to live with it." She looked up at the man who had been her teacher, her guide, and more than a father to her for many years, hoping she could make him understand. "You haven't seen him, haven't seen how much he's hurting. But he manages to live with it every single day. I think he can teach Willow the same thing." 

Giles's expression hardened - but he made no further move towards the stairs. "I only pray you're right." 

"So do I. But in any case, it's about time I did something for my friend. I've stood back and let her suffer long enough." 

********** 

They crumpled together to the floor and huddled there while she raged at him and wailed. He bore her blows stoically until they began to weaken and she collapsed against him, sobs wracking her thin body. Spike rocked her wordlessly until they subsided into incoherent murmurs against his chest. 

"I'm _nothing_," she moaned as he held her. "She's gone, and I miss her _so much_, and I can't do anything to bring her back." Wrung out with her grief, she couldn't manage more than a reedy monotone. 

"I've lost everything I had that ever mattered. Tara, the magic - I could have done so much good--" Willow's face twisted suddenly, and she pushed away out of Spike's embrace to scrabble across the floor to where the plastic-lined wicker wastebasket stood beside Buffy's desk. But he came up behind her and held her, bracing her forehead with one hand as she retched into the wastebasket helplessly, until nothing more than green bile came up from her abused stomach, her hair hanging damp and limp about her face. 

Once he was reasonably certain she wouldn't be sick again, Spike released her and went across the hallway into the bathroom to wet a washcloth. When he returned, he knelt to present it to her and waited while she wiped her mouth and face clean. 

"Is that why you chose to submit to a spell?" he asked, when she looked back up at him. "Because you thought that was a way to be punished _enough_? So you could get it over with?" He shook his head. "Guilt hurts. It won't ever _stop_ hurting. You'll always have to live with the pain of what you did. But the question is, what wondrous moments can you wrest from your life in addition to the pain?" 

"I'm nothing," Willow whispered again, though with somewhat less conviction as Spike helped her rise to sit on the bed. 

"You're not nothing. Do we deserve to be punished for what we've done? Yes. But what purpose, what greater good would our deaths serve?" 

"It would stop the pain," Willow said softly. 

"It would," he agreed. "But only if you think death is an end, and not a doorway to another place." He looked up, as though he could spy heaven through the ceiling plaster. "I find I'm much less of an agnostic than I was - Mother would have been pleased." He returned his eyes to hers. "Despite everything, it can still be a glorious thing to be human, and alive. 'What is man, that thou art mindful of him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.'" 

She smiled. "If you're looking for quotes to inspire me about the wonders of staying alive, you really have to find something more secular. Try this: 'What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god!'" 

"Touché, Red," Spike smiled. "I suppose I have to yield to your superior skills on that point, at least." 

He settled into the chair beside the bed as Willow leaned back into the headboard. "Hey, I tried to destroy _six billion_ people," she said with black humour. 

"Yeh, but _actual_ murder beats _attempted_ every time, and by my count you're only at two. I'm still way ahead." 

Her fingers twisted into the white quilt beneath her. "I killed... I murdered Rack and Warren." She didn't try to talk her way around it anymore; it was a flat statement of fact. 

"Can't tell you the names of most of my dead. I'm still here, doing my best to put it to rights." 

"But how can I go on? Tara's _gone_." She couldn't get away from this one essential point. 

_No more sympathy, now. _ "Yeah? So's my whole family, for one reason or another. Killed my mother m'self," he admitted. 

Willow was shocked out of her focus on her own pain. "You killed your _own mother_?" she asked, taken aback. 

"Turned her into a vampire so she wouldn't die of consumption - tuberculosis, you'd say today." He dropped his eyes as though shamed. "Didn't work out well. Ended up killing her again, after." His closed expression said he wouldn't welcome questions on the matter. 

"Spike," Willow asked carefully, "Are you trying to say your dead are more important than my dead?" 

He frowned. "Don't let's get into a pissing contest over this, Red." 

"That would hardly be fair, given the advantage you've got, now would it?" 

Spike stared at her for long moments, then blinked. "Was that a joke?" 

Willow's mouth quirked in a small, hesitant smile. "Why? Was it so bad you couldn't tell?" 

Their laughter together skirted the edge of hysteria, for a while. 

"Tara's really gone," she said flatly, but without renewed tears. 

"Not so long as you live, and remember her," Spike observed. "She deserves that, at least. No one else knew all the little things about her that made her so special." _And who will remember me, when I'm gone? _

"So is that it?" Willow asked with a pessimistic smile. "Live for her memory, and I'm cured?" 

Spike laughed harshly. "Hardly. I made you acknowledge some hard truths - but you could turn around and put them out of your mind tomorrow, easily. I don't have any miracle cure. You just... go on. And if you're lucky, you only get the urge to do yourself in every _other_ day." He paused for a deep breath. "But if you need someone to talk to, Buffy knows where to find me." He closed his eyes and leaned back into the chair, hands spread limply on his thighs. Voices washed over him; faces of people long dead hung before his closed eyes. 

Minutes of silence passed, until Willow asked, "She doesn't have any idea, does she?" 

Spike drew himself out of his introspection with some effort. "What's that?" 

"Buffy. She doesn't know what she's asked you to relive, coming to talk to me." 

"No," he agreed. "But I'll spare her the knowledge, if I can. I'm not looking for sympathy points." 

"But it's not f--" Willow stopped herself, and flushed. "She's a killer too, you know." 

"Sort of goes with the Slayer job description, Red," he said gently. 

"No, that's not what I meant. When the Knights of Byzantium were after Dawn, Buffy killed more than a few of them - and they were all humans. How come she doesn't have to pay for it?" 

"I don't think she remembers much from those last few days before she..." --it still pained him to say it-- "died. A small mercy." 

"How can she just _forget_ something like that? Back when we were seniors, she was there when Faith killed the deputy mayor. I held her hand through that when she nearly fell apart." 

"Faith. That's the crazy Slayer, safely locked up somewhere, right?" 

Willow nodded, letting herself be distracted momentarily from her original point. "But not before she stole Buffy's body, threatened to kill her mom - and slept with Riley," she said. 

Something cold settled in the pit of Spike's stomach. "Is that so?" he asked, his words clipped and careful. "That would explain a number of things. I thought she seemed a little off that night." 

"You saw her then? She would have taken you out just for the fun of it, if she felt like it," she said breathlessly. "You're lucky you survived." 

_I'm not sure I did. _

"So it's all right that you and I are paying for what we've done, and she's not?" Willow persisted on her original tack when he didn't reply. 

"I think... Buffy needs the world to be simple," he replied, after careful thought. "The good guys wear white hats and the bad guys wear black and all deserve to die. She couldn't survive doing what she has to do, otherwise. You and I, on the other hand, we're not such innocents." 

She eyed him speculatively. "I don't think you're giving her enough credit." 

He grimaced. "It would hardly be the first time I've fucked up, trying to predict her." 

"Spike... can I ask you a personal question?" Willow asked gravely. 

"I think I probably owe you at least that," he replied with equal gravity. 

"When did you know you were in love with Buffy? Did I... did my spell--" she winced in expectation, but the geas didn't strike her for just the word. "Did I _make_ you fall in love with her?" 

"Kind of thought that was the point of it, Red," he smiled. "I _was_ in love with her, while the spell lasted. But no, much as you'd like to, you can't take the blame for that one. Once it was over, it just gave me 'shag her to death' as another option on my 'ways to kill the Slayer' list. It took me... oh, at least another year before I came completely unhinged." He smiled softly at this reminiscence. "Thought at first I was going crazy." _It doesn't matter how it happened anymore, if by loving her I can do her some good. _

"How did you make it through the summer after she died?" 

His forehead creased with remembered pain. "I promised her... that I'd protect Dawn. It gave me some purpose, something to focus on, beside how much pain I was in, every one of those hundred forty seven days." 

"Tara's dead." Her voice was flat, but steady. "She's dead, and unlike Buffy, won't ever be coming back. But I guess she wouldn't want me to be dead, too. So what do I do now?" 

She looked so lost, but he had no answers for her. "There's no secret to it. In time, it becomes bearable." _Though I couldn't tell you how many years it's going to take me. _ "You just go on. You find something worth going on for." A possibility occurred to him. "It's not much, but Buffy and Dawn could use a hand investigating some blood bank thefts. I understand from Buffy that Xander's not going to be involved much for a while." 

Willow made a face, whether at having to resume the mantle of 'research girl' or at Xander's renewed attempts at romance he couldn't tell. "I guess that's something, for now," Willow said. "I'll talk to Buffy and let you know how that goes." 

He recognized a dismissal when he heard one, and stood to go. 

"Spike, wait." She got up from the bed and came over to him. Taking his face in her hands, she stood on tiptoe to kiss his forehead in benediction. "Thanks." 

********** 

"Willow wants to see you," he said to Buffy as he came down. Buffy looked over at Giles and then back at Spike with an uncertain glance, then headed up the stairs. 

Giles wasted no time in advancing on him. "What did you do to her?" 

Spike immediately went on the offensive. "What did _I_ do? What the hell did _you_ do to her that has her spewing her guts up at the slightest thought of using magic?" 

Giles was taken aback by Spike's vehemence, and found himself suddenly on the defensive. "I hardly think you're in a position to criticize our methods, Spike." 

"Well it's about time _someone_ did." 

"You wouldn't understand." 

"Try me." 

Against his better judgement, Giles found himself trying to explain the choices he and the witches of the coven had made. "Willow's become by far the most powerful witch I've ever encountered. The dark magic she absorbed last year has become an indissoluble part of her, and she has no way of controlling it. The coven placed a geas on her to prevent her using it, until such time as she may be able to bring it under control." 

"So you just went ahead and partitioned her brain? Where's the fucking free will in that, Rupert?" 

"Willow agreed it would be for the best." 

"_Willow_ agreed," he said incredulously. "She's a _child_. She trusted you. They _all_ trusted you. You were more a father than most of them ever had, and--" 

"That's enough!" Giles roared, cutting him off in mid sentence. "I will _not_ stand here discussing this with you. You are _not_ part of this." His eyes narrowed, and he counterattacked. "Why are you _really_ here, Spike?" 

It was Spike's turn to try to justify his actions. "You know why. Buffy asked me to come and talk to Willow. I did that. I don't know if it will do her any good, but it was what Buffy wanted." 

"And with this you hoped to win yourself back into her good graces? What exactly are your intentions regarding Buffy?" 

"_Intentions_, Rupert? Who the hell died and made you her father?" 

"According to you, I already am." Giles stepped forward, removing his glasses. All traces of the pedantic librarian were long gone from his face; this was Ripper now, intent on getting what he wanted. "I was her Watcher and advisor for five years, Spike - or _William_, if that's how you're styling yourself these days. I hope that she would also consider me her friend for many of those years as well. I won't see her hurt." 

"_You_ don't want her hurt? Oh that's rich, that is, coming from you. _You're_ the man who walked out on her last year when she needed you. Just another one in a whole string of men, in fact - _including_ her father. I stayed with her." 

"Yes, you stayed, Spike. But to what end? To turn her away from her friends so that she would have no one to depend on but you? To persist in following her around even when she had told you there would be nothing further between you? To... to rape her?" 

_A knife to the gut, Rupert? Always knew that would be your style_. "I never--" 

"No. You didn't," Giles conceded. "But only because she stopped you." 

Spike dropped his eyes. _Whatever else I may ever do for her, I'm the man who once did that. No matter that she forgave me at the last. I'll always know. _ "Yes. And when I realized what I'd done I made bloody sure I'd never be able to do anything remotely like that again, didn't I?" 

"That remains to be seen, doesn't it? Despite all the changes in you. So I _will_ ask you again, Spike. What do you want here?" 

Giles took a step back at the look that suddenly blazed up in his eyes. Incongruously, Spike suddenly seemed much more dangerous as a man than he had as a vampire. 

"What do I want? Oh Rupert, shall I tell you what I really want, then?" Emotions that he'd fought hard to deny came boiling forth in an irresistible torrent of words, pouring out before he even had a moment to consider what he was saying. 

"What I _want_ is to fight for her and beside her and always be there to guard her back. I want to stand by her side and provide for her every need. I want to give her all the love and comfort and protection that a proper man should." Clenched fists thrust hard at his sides, punctuating each statement. 

"I want to lie down every night by her side, and wake every morning in her arms. I want to draw out the days of her life as a goldsmith would draw hot gold wire; stretching it out further than anyone thinks possible. And on the day that I finally fail to protect her and she has to die, I want to be there to lay down my life at her side, because this world will be empty for me without her in it." Tears streaked unchecked now down the stark planes of his face. 

"Is that good enough for you, Rupert?" he demanded, his voice breaking. "Will that do?" 

Giles only stood and stared, his glasses dangling forgotten from his fingertips as Spike pushed past his unresisting form. Neither one of them noticed the slight figure that had stopped on the landing at hearing the voices below, a trembling hand at her mouth muffling her soft cry. 

Spike finally gathered the ragged shreds of his composure again, angrily scrubbing the traces of tears from his face with the heels of his hands. He turned back, drew himself to his full height and looked up to challenge the ex-Watcher. Despite his larger stature, Giles took an involuntary step back. 

"Not one word of this to Buffy, you understand," Spike hissed, "Or soul or no, I'll take your bloody head off. I'm not daft enough any more to believe that what I want and what she deserves are even in the same _library_, much less on the same page." With that final warning, he threw the front door wide and escaped. 

"You poor bastard," Giles breathed at last, watching him stride away down the street. 

********* 

Corey waved him over as he arrived at Desperados later that evening. Curious, Spike followed him into the break room. 

"That girl you were talking to the other day came by here looking for you," he said. 

_Buffy? _ His heart hammered suddenly in his chest. "Which one, Corey? Specifics would be good." 

"The brunette," Corey replied, cupping his hands in front of his chest in unconscious reference to two of Allie's more prominent features. 

_Allie. Definitely_ not _Buffy_, he realized, as he reached for the hook with his work shirt. "What did she want?" 

"She said sorry she missed you, she was going to take off for a while, and don't try to find her," Corey related, ticking the points off on his fingers. 

"What? Why?" 

"She didn't say. But... she looked pretty rough." 

He suddenly had Spike's full attention. "What do you mean?" 

"Like someone had worked her over pretty good. You know - black eye, split lip--" Corey found himself talking to empty air. 

It was only as Spike hit the street in front of the bar that he realized he hadn't the slightest idea where to begin looking for her. 

********** 

Intuition more than insight eventually brought him around to the Motel California. Donnie Tranh sat lazily in his easy chair in his usual spot behind the cracked counter in the office, letting the blue glow of the portable TV wash over him. Spike wouldn't have been at all surprised to find him under a layer of dust. 

"Donnie--" Spike began. 

"You _late_!" the old man cackled, on seeing him. "She been here for _hours_. Mebbe got new boyfriend, eh?" He admonished Spike with a waggle of one crooked finger from where he sat. "You suppose' take better care of her, yes?" 

"Just give me a key, Donnie," Spike growled in exasperation. 

"She got," he replied. "Only one for room." More manic laughter followed Spike out of the office and to the door of their usual room. 

The thin wood of the door shivered under his hammering fist. "Allie? I know you're in there. Donnie told me you were here." 

"Go away, Spike." Her voice was muffled by the sound of the television playing at high volume. "I don't want to see you." 

"Don't make me take this door off at the hinges - now open up!" 

The sound from the television cut off abruptly, and the next thing he heard was the turning of the deadbolt. The door swung open a crack, and he pushed through. 

Allie settled herself cross-legged on the end of the rumpled bed, pointedly ignoring him, and picked up the TV remote again. Barefoot and without makeup, she looked no more than sixteen - a teenager whose biggest concern should have been who would ask her to the prom. 

The ice bucket sat in a puddle of meltwater on the dresser. She had placed a dozen or more ice cubes in a towel and was holding the resulting bundle gingerly against her cheek with her free hand. The flesh there was blackened and distended to the point that she couldn't open her right eye. Her lower lip was similarly swollen. 

Spike knelt before the end of the bed and took the remote from her unresisting fingers. With his other hand, he lifted her chin gently until she had no choice but to look at him. 

"Nice, huh? Should do wonders for business." Her puffy lip slurred her words into a lisp. "Think I lost a fucking tooth, too." 

"Who did this to you?" 

"I thought it was just business - you know, a little rough trade," she went on, as though she hadn't heard him. "Until he started going on about how all the girls down here work for him and how he wanted to see if I was... good enough. Think I broke his nose before he was done, though," she added proudly. 

"He... raped you?" he asked softly. 

Her laugh was as hard and brittle as her eyes. "Oh, Spike. Don't you know you can't rape a whore? You can only forget to pay them when you're done." 

He cupped her bruised face gently in his hands. "Tell me how to find this guy and I'll see that he's taken care of." 

She shook her head free from his grasp impatiently. "I don't need you to be my avenging angel, Spike." He flinched; she didn't see it. "I already know what I'm going to do to that bastard." 

Allie got up and paced angrily about the room. As she moved, he could see more bruises revealed by her shifting clothing. "I'm sick of this game. I'm sick of taking shit from mouth-breathing lowlifes who think that just because they've got more muscles than I do that they can tell me what to do. I don't work for anyone but myself. And I take care of myself," she added, looking back at him. "Don't get involved." 

"I am involved. What kind of a friend would I be if I didn't worry about you?" 

"I never asked you to be my friend," she snapped. 

"Whether you asked for it or not, it's happened. I can't just turn off caring about what happens to you." 

"Yeah? Sucks to be you, then." 

He took both her hands in his, then reached to brush a stray strand of hair away from her face. "Would it be so terrible to admit someone could care about you for _you?_" 

For a moment he thought he saw tears welling in her dark eyes as she looked away - but it must have been a trick of the light, because when she turned back to him her eyes were hard. "Don't do this to me, Spike. Don't make me soft. I already made a mistake, leaving a message for you and then sticking around here long enough for you to find me." 

"You can't just run away from this. Please, let me help, or--" 

"Or you'll do what? You'll _make_ me stay?" She snorted. "Maybe I should make _you_ my pimp. Do you think that would improve things?" 

Spike closed his eyes and released her hands, accepting defeat. "Will you come back?" he asked, his voice barely audible over the omnipresent hum of freeway traffic nearby. 

She looked back at him and her face held no expression. "I really don't know, Spike. Make sure Donnie gets the key back before you go, okay?" 


	24. A Week in the Death of William the Blood...

I know. I said that I would update the last chapter with some comments, and I didn't. There have been many kind comments, both here and at my own pages, about "The Letter" and how it has been developing. Thanks for your detailed thoughts when you could spare the time - the things that bothered you about seasons 6 and 7 are probably the things that bothered me too, and I've been trying to see if there's a way that everyone could rebuild what they all meant to each other, without having to duck around all the very real bad shit that they have done. And I do mean _everyone_. 

And thank you all for the encouragement that's kept me going. If I began to name even a few names, I'd feel bad that I couldn't name everyone - so please know that yes, I do mean you. It hasn't been a pretty story at times, and I'm afraid that this is another one of those kinds of chapters - but I hope that it's true to its intent, and like life, not always fun, but ultimately it's the story of how we can rise above ourselves for something better, if only we'll try. 

I've had to smile several times reading the reviews and comments that have come up about Allie. So much emotion. It ranges from passionate rejection of the idea that Spike could be with anyone other than Buffy, to veiled criticism that I'm pulling yet another _Mary Sue_. Believe me, I'm not Allie. And stories would be fairly stagnant if we had to rely on only the core characters, time after time after time. So I gave her more than just a flash-in-the-pan storyline. 

She began as a nameless encounter whose only purpose was to show the depths to which Spike was sinking, faced with a soul and his own new mortality. And yet, in a way, it's become _her_ story, a cautionary tale of how cold and alone you'll be if you can't let someone love you. In Spike's words, there truly is something profoundly broken about her. Maybe she does reflect some elements of my life, and I hope that something of her touches you as well. I feel sorry for her. 

After all, what we all really want is someone who will let us be theirs, despite everything we've done. 

School's out, and the end is finally in sight. There are only four chapters after this one. I think I might have said that at some point, but this time I really mean it. I can't tell you the titles, because they're spoilery for what comes next, but I _really and truly_ promise only four more now. And an epilogue... 

Of course, after this one you might not ever trust me again...   
------------------- 

**A Week in the Death of William the Bloody**

"If you've got personal problems you need to take care of, come talk to me," Jake had said, when Spike had finally returned to the bar later that night. "We can work something out. But just take off like that again and you don't need to worry about coming back." Chastened, Spike had only nodded, and returned to work. 

Instead of the usual rotation, he'd persuaded Corey and the other bouncers to let him finish out the shift at the front entrance. It was a position they ceded willingly, since everyone complained of the chill evening air. From this post, in quiet moments, Spike surveyed the street, looking for unfamiliar faces among the crowds. By the end of the night, he'd decided what to do, and asked Jake to give him a week. Jake had agreed, if reluctantly, and hadn't asked questions. 

After work that night, and every night following, Spike spent hours walking the streets. He hardly slept, snatching a few hours at the Motel California or in the break room back at Desperados, but used his time questioning anyone who was willing to talk to him. Most were reluctant, but he marshalled the skills in persuasion he'd acquired in a century of dealing with Drusilla, and gradually gathered the information he wanted. 

It didn't take him a week. 

He had a name - Tonio - and the information that he could often be found at one of the strip clubs down the street from Desperados. He wasn't at all surprised when he found it was the Orange Grove. 

Spike entered the Orange Grove late one afternoon. He paused for a moment inside the doorway to let his sun-dazzled eyes adjust to the dimness within. Despite the early hour, the club was about half full. The after-work crowd filled most of the tables near the stage, where a disinterested dancer was contorting her nearly nude body into improbable poses around the pole while the sound system thumped away. 

He walked past the row of video lottery terminals with their attendant zombies - he took a second look, because in Sunnydale it paid to check out that sort of thing - but all the players were simply humans, mesmerized by the rapidly flickering lights. Like automatons, they deposited quarter after quarter and pressed buttons hoping for a payoff. 

Beyond them the room opened out into a shallow flight of stairs. Up a few steps there was a secondary room filled with pool tables, with a number of games in progress. Spike's attention was immediately drawn to a man at one of the tables. He had the look of an athlete who'd been retired and had been living the good life a little too long. Broad shoulders and a generous belly strained the lines of his expensive suit. He was out of condition to the point that just playing pool had left his face slick and his hair in disarray. But his most outstanding feature by far was the large white plaster across his nose, in startling contrast to his oily, acne-scarred cheeks. 

Usually Spike was able to distance himself from passing judgment on Allie's profession, maintaining a certain equanimity about it all. But the thought of this... _gorilla_... grunting and pumping away on top of her as she struggled to free herself filled him with formless rage. He swore that he could feel his features rearranging and fangs descending before he got hold of his emotions again. 

Instead of lunging across the green felt and satisfying murderous urges, Spike rummaged in his pockets and turned over a fistful of limp bills to a scantily clad waitress in return for a table and a set of pool balls. He set up, took a cue from the rack on the wall behind him, and broke noisily, channelling his aggression into the balls. 

He played aimlessly, setting up wild trick shots at a whim. The waitress brought him beer after beer as he played and drank long enough to hear Tonio and his companions discuss their plans for the evening, and Spike began crafting a plan of his own, a plan that seemed more and more justified in proportion to the amount of alcohol he had consumed. 

He watched them as they left, noting with disdain that Tonio put the evening's expenses on account, and didn't bother to tip. As far as he was concerned, it was just another strike against him. 

Spike waited a few minutes, letting Tonio get a head start, then waved the waitress over. "Thanks, pet." Taking the startled woman by the back of the neck, he pulled her close and planted a beery kiss on her lips. He then tucked a twenty deep into her cleavage, and spun to follow his quarry. "Got to see a man about a girl." 

********** 

"Wake up, you ape," Spike demanded, nudging the heavyset man with the steel toe of one boot where he leaned against the dumpster. His victim grunted, but opened his eyes. 

A cold smile crossed Spike's lips - a smile Buffy would have recognized - that was sharp enough to flense the flesh from his bones. "So you're Tonio." He dragged the other man to his feet by the lapels of his now-ruined suit. 

"Who wants to know?" Tonio wheezed, struggling to stay balanced on his feet, because Spike had lashed his hands behind him. "Whoever you're working for, I can double what they're paying you," he offered, with a show of bravado. 

"Oh, me? I'm no one important." His first blow took Tonio squarely in the stomach, and doubled him over. "And I'm not working for anyone. This is entirely... personal." Slowly and methodically, with skills that could only have been gained through a century of violence, Spike began to take him apart, concentrating on duplicating Allie's injuries as much as he remembered them. 

Spike made sure that he'd survive, of course. That was the whole point. He had to feel every bruise, every break and every lost tooth just as Allie had. It was with grim satisfaction that he finally left Tonio lying limp and naked in the grimy alley, and staggered away. 

********** 

He woke in a familiar bed with an aching head and a sour mouth. It took him a few minutes to place himself back in the room at the Motel California. Spike levered himself up from the bed and walked cautiously into the bathroom. He ran water into the cracked basin, rinsed his mouth and splashed his face before looking up at himself into the mirror. 

He remembered then - with a kind of shameful joy - what he'd done to Tonio. The beating, the careful breaking of his ribs under a heavy boot, the-- 

Spike barely made it to the toilet before being violently ill. He collapsed to the cold tiles, shuddering and clutching at himself. 

_What have I done? _

He'd been a man for nearly a year now - but he still thought he could feel the demon take a bleeding, ragged mouthful from his soul. 

********** 

Beth Patterson had been an honour student throughout high school, and valedictorian of her graduating class. She was the kind of overachiever that other students should have hated - if she just hadn't been so darn _nice_. While maintaining a straight-A average, she'd also been captain of the basketball team that had made it all the way to the state finals before being defeated by only a few points in the final match. 

No one had been surprised, then, that she had received dozens of offers of full scholarships both academic and athletic from universities and colleges across the country. What _had_ surprised even her closest friends was that she had turned down all the glamorous offers - in favour of a degree in sociology with a major in social work from Cal Poly. 

When questioned why she hadn't considered a more prestigious school, she had just smiled and replied: "This is what I have to do." That, and play for the Mustangs, making the Big West All Rookie basketball team in her freshman year. 

On receiving her degree - _magna cum laude_, of course - Beth had shocked everyone again by choosing the relative backwater of Sunnydale California in which to begin her career. "Have you looked at the statistics?" she'd asked. "Next to Cleveland, of all places, Sunnydale has the highest incidence of runaways and broken families in the country. What better place to start making a difference?" 

The beleaguered caseworkers at the understaffed Social Services office in Sunnydale welcomed her with open arms, immediately assigning her a caseload that would have taxed the resources of an experienced employee. Beth accepted with good grace, and was on her way to becoming a most valued colleague. 

None of this, of course, was obvious about the battered corpse found in an alleyway not far from the Bronze, its throat raggedly torn and its face beaten beyond recognition. Sunnydale police would barely have raised an eyebrow at another death by 'neck rupture', if not for the fact that the body had been found completely naked. In any other city, Beth's death would have made 72-point front-page headlines; in Sunnydale, it was a page four story, almost hidden by news of a tax hike being voted on by city council. 

The police consulted dental records and missing persons reports nationwide in an effort to identify the body. It only took about a week - but by then, of course, it was already much too late. 

********** 

Spike returned to work and did his best to forget, both what he'd seen and what he'd done. The word got around the bar quickly to the rest of the staff that something had happened to Spike's girlfriend, and that they'd subsequently broken off with each other, so they all tried to cut him some slack. But everyone agreed that he wasn't quite the same, after. He was doing his job as well as before, but he talked less and kept to himself more - and Jake made no more mention of him dancing with the customers. 

After several days, everyone had settled - if not comfortably, then at least professionally - back into their various working relationships with him. Tina tried the longest to get a smile out of him, but eventually even she gave up and just let Spike be as morose as he pleased. 

By the end of the week it was understandable that Joey was eager to be able to give Spike some good news. He caught up to Spike as he came out of the break room. "Hey Spike, your girlfriend said to tell you she'd be right out." 

It took a moment to realize that he must have meant Allie. _She's back. Allie's come back. _ It had been more than a week since she'd left, and he'd almost given up hope of ever seeing her again. He let a small grin cross his lips, the first in some time. _Maybe she's changed her mind. Maybe she'll let me help. _

He spotted her as she left the washroom and waved to attract her attention. Her rounded face bore no trace of the injuries she'd received at Tonio's hands. As she crossed the floor, she reached into her purse to pull out a tube of lipstick and expertly refreshed her smile. Knowing Spike was watching, she teasingly rolled her hips with every stride, and he glanced up into the security mirror for a better view from behind her. Brutal seconds ticked by as he searched for her in the glass, until cold realization flooded him. Allie had no reflection. He closed his eyes and leaned heavily back against the bar. 

"What's the matter, Spike?" she whispered darkly as she came up to him. "I thought you liked to watch." 

"Please no," he sighed in futile protest, unable to do more than raise his hands weakly against her. _What have I done to you? I should have stopped this... I should have known..._

"You know, Spike, there was only one thing you forgot to tell me. You never told me how much _fun_ it was." She hooked one impossibly strong hand behind his neck and forced his head down to capture his mouth with hers. Cold lips crushed against his and then her tongue pushed roughly into his mouth. She tasted as he'd often imagined she would, of smoke and stale night air, but now touched with decay. Her teeth scraped over his lower lip as she pulled back, drawing blood before she released him. 

"Who did this to you?" he gasped, recovering his breath after her assault. 

"Ran into some of your friends. You know, the ones you thought were at the clinic? It's a way bigger operation than your _Slayer_" --she pronounced the word with disdain-- "ever imagined. They've got a whole warehouse full of stuff going on." 

"I should have been with you. Allie... I'm so sorry--" 

"_I'm_ not. I asked them to; I _begged_ them. I even said we could have some fun first, before they did me." She lifted her shirt to expose smooth skin. "Look - you can't even see any of the marks anymore." 

Spike wanted to vomit as Allie went on to describe what had been done to her before she'd been turned. She lingered over the descriptions in obvious delight. 

"I see now why your Buffy only ever wanted to fuck vampires," she observed brightly. "The endurance is incredible. Too bad these boys didn't really have any imagination. Now you--" her smile chilled his blood, "I'll bet you would have been some fun. 

"See you around, Spike," she murmured with a lewd wink and a bruising grab at his crotch. Blowing him a kiss from her now smudged lips, she was gone. 

He clutched at the bar to keep his footing, the taste of his own blood metallic and sour in his mouth. When he wiped it from his lips, he saw it was the exact shade of her lipstick. When he finally came back to himself enough to realize that he had to go after her, the night was half over and Allie was long gone. 

********** 

"When are you going to tell him that you heard what he said to Giles?" Dawn asked her, for about the third time. 

"I told you; if I could _find_ him to tell him, I would have already," Buffy replied sharply. "But he hasn't been at work, and Clem hasn't seen him for days." She gathered her jacket and slung her backpack over her shoulder. "And I have too many other things that I have to do first - like finding someone to cover the end of my shift tonight so I can be back here to meet another damn social worker--" 

Dawn drew back, stung, and Buffy relented. "Oh Dawn, I'm sorry. It's making me crazy, not being able to find him and not knowing what's happened to him, when I thought we might finally... And I _can't_ just ditch work or miss this meeting tonight, because that risks everything else that's finally going right." She dug in her jacket pockets to confirm that she had her house keys. 

"Okay. I'll be back about eight. Make sure you have something decent to eat, not just pizza - and don't leave dishes in the sink, and--" 

"Buffy, I'll be fine. I was fine alone for months before Willow and Giles were here; I'll be fine alone again now that they've gone back to their own place. Really." Dawn opened the front door. "Now get going before you're late to work." 

"I'll bring home some videos," Buffy promised, as Dawn ushered her out. "We'll have a chick flick night. We can make popcorn." 

"Go!" Dawn laughed and rolled her eyes. 

********** 

Dawn responded to the doorbell to find a dark haired young woman standing on the front porch. She wore a severe grey suit and at her side she held a slim black leather briefcase. 

"Um, hello?" she said, not recognizing her. 

"Hi Dawn. Miss Patterson had a family emergency. I'm Miss Phillips." She flashed her ID. "I hope it's okay. I know I'm a little early," she said, checking her watch. 

Dawn noted the familiar logo of the Social Services department, and relaxed. "Sure. Come on in. Can I get you something to drink?" 

********** 

They settled in the living room with a pot of tea and a plate of Dawn's latest homemade cookies on the table between them. Miss Phillips settled back thoughtfully with a cup, and consulted her notes. 

"Is it all right if we go ahead and start? There's a lot to cover." 

Dawn nodded agreement, and the social worker began with a series of questions - 'How do you feel about your performance at school?'; 'Do you feel you have friends you can confide in?'; 'What did you have for dinner tonight?'; and 'How good a job do you think your sister is doing balancing work and looking after the household?' 

Dawn knew full well that answers to even the most innocent-seeming questions could carry a lot more weight than they appeared to on the surface, and so she considered her words carefully and tried to answer as thoroughly as possible. In any case, Miss Phillips - like Miss Patterson before her - was a definite improvement over bitchy Doris Kroeger who had been her social worker last year. Miss Phillips made occasional notations, but for the most part, watched Dawn's reactions. 

"Buffy should really be home any time now," Dawn said, at a momentary lull in the questions. "Did you want to wait and meet her before we go on?" 

Miss Phillips leaned forward and set her empty cup back on the table. "There's really only one thing I don't understand, Dawn," she said, with a small frown. 

"What is it?" Dawn's gut tightened with apprehension. _Did I remember to say Buffy always buys lettuce so I can have salads? Did I sound like I was complaining that she has to work nights? I like having time to myself in the evenings..._

"I'm sure it's just an oversight... but it doesn't say anywhere in the files how you felt when you found out that for most of last year a vampire had been dicking your sister." 

"It what? I... what?" Dawn stammered, her heart suddenly hammering. The resulting rush of blood was loud in her ears. Surely she hadn't heard what she'd just thought she heard. "I beg your pardon?" 

"Because you just know Spike must have had every hole of her, in the bushes, in the alley - maybe even in your bed," Miss Phillips went on as though she hadn't heard a word of Dawn's protest. "Something like that is bound to be traumatic, don't you think? How did you deal with it?" 

"Who the hell _are_ you?" Dawn demanded, struggling up from her chair and backing away. 

"I'm Allie. Spike's told me so many things about you, I thought I'd like to come meet you for myself," she said, with a disingenuous smile. "He likes it when I punish him, you know. So I thought I'd finally do it properly." 

Dawn had always had a certain scorn for the victims in horror movies who simply stood and let the monsters attack them. But now she found herself frozen to the spot as Allie's features morphed and remoulded themselves to reveal icy yellow eyes and serrated fangs. 

"Maybe I'll even let you tell him what a good job I did, when I'm done with you." Allie crouched over the table, ready to spring. 

Dawn's mind somehow found that moment to wonder how long it had taken Spike to learn to talk around his fangs without lisping. As though that absurdity were the key that set her free, she whirled and ran. 

She raced into the kitchen and almost immediately cursed herself. Buffy's weapons chest was only a few feet away from where she had been sitting, and she desperately racked her brain for an idea how to get back into the living room. But then Allie burst through the doorway and she was left with no time to think, only to react. Dawn grabbed the nearest object to hand and swung it with all her strength. 

It was only when Allie shrieked and clutched at her face that Dawn realized what she was holding; she'd torn down the braided string of garlic that hung beside the doorway. _Good thing I like to cook Italian_, she thought - and had a sudden flash of inspiration. 

She backed away around the kitchen island, her eyes never leaving Allie - who had shaken off the worst of the effects and had begun advancing on her again. Dawn felt rather than looked behind her for the spice rack mounted on the wall. Her fingers slipped over the containers as she counted along the rows. _And Buffy laughed when I alphabetized the spice rack. _ She made her choice and pulled a jar from the rack. A quick twist and a flick of one thumb and she had removed the cap and the shaker lid, and Dawn flung the contents into Allie's face. 

The results were instantaneous; Allie's face blistered and peeled everywhere the garlic powder touched her skin, and her eyes reddened and ran with viscous, cloudy tears. She screamed in agony, but didn't stop advancing. She reached for Dawn blindly, her hands scrabbling along the countertop in an effort to find her way. "Your sister won't be able to find all the pieces when I'm done with you!" 

"Stay away from me you bitch!" Dawn grabbed the largest knife from the knife block and, holding it tightly in both fists, plunged it down through Allie's hand - where it stuck in the butcher-block top of their brand new built-in dishwasher. Realizing that this would probably be her only chance, Dawn dashed back into the living room and threw open the weapons chest. 

_Buffy's going to kill me..._ She wrenched open the lid and groped within, throwing out stakes and bottles of holy water in favour of the crossbow at the bottom. Cranking it back feverishly, she managed to get one of the bolts loaded into position just as Allie came through the doorway from the kitchen, her ruined hand splattering blood everywhere. Bracing her shoulders against the wall, Dawn fired. 

The bolt buried itself in Allie's shoulder. 

She wiped her running eyes and laughed crazily. "Is that the best you can do? It's no wonder you were so jealous of your sister all these years." Allie pulled the bolt free and cast it skittering across the floor behind her. 

Dawn worked desperately at the crossbow trying to load another, but Allie leapt for her and carried them both down onto the floor. Her uninjured hand closed crushingly tight around Dawn's throat, and she ran her tongue in a grotesque caress up Dawn's cheek. "Or maybe you're just jealous because he's had both of us and never once tried for a taste of you. Is that it? He'll never know now what he missed." 

Her fangs sank deeply into Dawn's flesh. 

********** 

Buffy heard Dawn's screams before she even felt the tingling sensation that warned of a vampire's presence nearby, and she travelled the last block to home in what even for her was record time. Throwing open the door, she met a scene out of her nightmares. Dawn sprawled limply in the grasp of a wild-eyed female vampire in the middle of the living room floor. Buffy reacted with the first thing to hand; she flung the two rented videos in their cases and struck the vampire squarely on the top of the head. 

Shattered plastic scattered across the floor, but the vampire only looked up slowly, meeting Buffy's gaze with liquid gold eyes that melted back into brown. "Nice to see you again too, Slayer. Remember me?" She got to her feet, carefully keeping Dawn positioned in front of her and maintaining her death grip on her throat. 

Buffy's blood ran cold. _Spike's girlfriend. _ "Allie." 

"Very good. I was just introducing myself to your sister here when you so rudely interrupted us. Don't try it--" she warned, as Buffy started towards her. "I can still finish her off before you can stop me." Without warning, Allie flung Dawn's limp form at Buffy, and used the moment to make her escape. 

Buffy caught Dawn and settled her gently to the floor again, then snatched up a stake for the pursuit, but Dawn stirred and moaned on the floor, bringing her to a sudden halt. Relief washed over Buffy so strongly that she couldn't even bring herself to care when she heard the back screen door bang shut behind Allie's retreating form, and she clutched Dawn to her, rocking her as though she were still the baby that memory insisted she once had been. 

"I'm okay," Dawn insisted weakly, pushing back from Buffy's overprotective embrace. 

"You are _not_ okay; you are going to the hospital." 

"I don't need a hospital," Dawn insisted, drawing herself up to lean back against the wall. "I'll be okay; she didn't have any time..." Memory came back with a rush. "She said something before, about punishing Spike." 

_Spike. Someone has to... I have to tell him. Before she goes after him too. _ "I can't leave you here; it's not safe." 

"Call Giles. I'll go to Willow and Giles." Dawn clutched at Buffy's jacket. "Promise me you'll find Spike." 

Buffy peeled Dawn's hand away from her lapel and held it tightly. "I promise." 

********** 

Spike thought that if he had to listen to that fucking Shania _fucking_ Twain sing "Forever and For Always" one more time, he would probably _welcome_ madness, instead of just flirting with the edge of sanity as he had for the past two days. His condition was not in any way improved by the contents of the flask in his hip pocket, nor by his realization that he not only knew the title of the current song but the artist as well, and found himself occasionally following the lyrics. His thoughts circled endlessly around what had happened and what he could have, _should have_ done, and ended up going nowhere useful at all. He was so wrapped up in the cottony numbness provided by the alcohol that he didn't even see Buffy until she was standing right in front of him. 

_'Cause I'm keeping you   
forever and for always   
We will be together all of our days   
Wanna wake up every   
morning to your sweet face... always_

"Bitch," he muttered - meaning Shania, still. "Stop... stop trying to see me," he added to Buffy, but more to his feet than to her face. 

Buffy could barely believe the change from the man that had come to see Willow not that long ago. He looked even paler than usual, and dissolute, and she decided that a gentle approach wouldn't even reach him. "Bad news, Spike. Your girlfriend's a vampire," Buffy said bluntly. 

"She's not my--" It certainly didn't matter any more how the relationship was defined. He pinched the bridge of his nose in a vain attempt to dislodge the stabbing pain that had taken up residence between his eyes. 

"She showed up at the house posing as a social worker and got Dawn to invite her in." 

"Oh god - is Dawn--" _Oh my Little Bit. What have I done? _ His gut churned, as though he'd swallowed poison. _Everything I touch turns to dross. _ He felt his legs give way, and he collapsed heavily against the wall to end up huddled on the floor, his arms around his knees. 

Buffy knelt before him and tugged impatiently at his hair until he was forced to look up at her again. "Don't go all catatonic on me, Spike; I need you to help me find her. Dawn's going to be all right. She put up one hell of a fight - and we got lucky that I was coming home early tonight." She stood and offered him her hand. "Now get up and help me." 

Disdaining her offer of assistance, Spike got slowly back to his feet. He wouldn't meet her eyes. "I knew about Allie," he admitted reluctantly. 

"You _knew_?" she demanded, outraged. "What the hell do you mean, you knew?" 

"She was in here coming on to me two days ago." He felt sick again, just at the memory. "That's when I found out." 

"_Two days_?" Buffy's voice threatened to break several city noise ordinances. "We're talking about a vampire that probably has personal information about all of my friends and family, and you've known for _two days_?" 

"If you're going to repeat everything I say, this conversation is going to take a very long time," he observed acerbically. 

Her open palm cracked harshly against his cheek and brought flashes of light to his vision. "What the hell is wrong with you? You let her leave here, knowing that? You let her attack my _sister_? You must know how many people she could have killed even in only two days - or were you too busy thinking with your dick to manage even that simple math?" 

His face contorting with rage, Spike slammed her back against the wall, pinning her wrists. She let him hold her there, though he knew she could break free any time she wished. "Yes, fine - I fucked her sometimes. Is that what you want to hear? She was still my _friend_, damn it!" He released her hands and stepped back before Corey or any of the others found it necessary to intervene. As yet, they were still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. "I can't..." 

"Your friend is dead, Spike," Buffy said with surprising gentleness. "There's nothing there but the demon now." 

"That's bullshit, Slayer, and you'd know it if you ever took a moment to pull your bottle-blonde head out of your ass. That's just a nice little bedtime story you tell yourself so you can sleep at night. Go ahead, tell me how much _I've_ changed," he challenged. 

When she didn't answer, he turned back to face her. "Strip away the _animus_ - the soul - and you expose pits of jealousy, rage, fear, greed, lust... The demon... feeds. Allie's still in there - only now she just doesn't care any more. But everything she was or might have been is still there. I couldn't kill her. Do you want me to admit it? I froze. I couldn't--" His voice was hoarse with emotion. 

Buffy closed her eyes, and when she spoke again her voice was suffused with pity. "William, we can't--" 

"I know. Let's go find her and kill her, then. I guess that's what we're both best at, isn't it?" Spike ducked into the break room to grab his jacket. "Tell Jake thanks for everything," he called to Joey as he pulled it on. "I don't think I'll be coming back." 

********** 

"The first logical stop would be her place," Buffy directed as they reached the street. 

"I don't know where she lives," Spike had to admit. Then, off Buffy's incredulous look: "She kept that part of our relationship strictly business - and Allie _never_ took business home with her." He took a moment to survey the street before continuing. "You try Donnie Tranh's 'Motel California' down by the freeway off ramp. That's where we'd usually go. If she's not there, come back here and give me a hand checking the streets where she used to hang about." 

"Motel California, check." Buffy's voice was all business, but when she turned to him the woman's compassionate eyes shone in the hard mask of the Slayer's face. "I'm sorry, William," she said. 

"Yeah. Save it for later." He thrust his hands in his pockets. "But Buffy... thanks." 

********** 

The Motel California, Buffy decided, was a dump of the first order. It had been built in a neo-Spanish style, and she supposed it had been quite elegant once; its two levels of white stucco arches surrounded a large central courtyard with a reflecting pool. Of course, that had been in the days when the view had been more than merely the thick concrete supports of the freeway. Now the stucco was stained and cracking away in large patches from the underlying structure. The courtyard pool now held only an assortment of flyblown trash that she had no desire to examine any more closely than necessary. 

The small Asian man in the fluorescent-lit office didn't even look up from the flickering screen of his small television when she came in. "Twenty bucks an hour, with a forty dollar deposit," he said in flawless English, to her complete surprise. When she didn't reply, he swivelled his recliner to look up at her. "What did you expect, bad dubbing? I was born here in Sunnydale." 

"I'm not here for a room," she said defensively, feeling at a definite disadvantage for her automatic assumption. "I'm looking for--" 

"That's too bad," he interrupted, leaning forward in his chair to better take in the sight of her where she stood at the counter. "You could make some good money." 

_Must... control... fist of death. _ "Are you Donnie Tranh?" 

"No, I'm Vincent. Donnie's my old man. What do you want him for?" 

"Just tell me if Allie's here," she asked, commending herself for her self-control in not laying him out flat on his own countertop. "You know Allie?" 

He shrugged expressively. "The girls all look the same after a while." 

"She's about this tall," Buffy said, indicating a height above her own with one hand. "Dark curly hair, and... you know..." Her hands cupped the air in front of her chest. When he still showed no sign of recognition, she tried a different tactic. "She'd maybe come in sometimes with a tall skinny blond guy. English. Looks like a refugee from a Billy Idol look-alike contest?" 

"You mean Spike?" he asked, to her complete astonishment. "Why didn't you say so? Everyone around here knows Spike." 

_I really don't want to know why. _

"I haven't seen the two of them together for at least a week - and they used to come by pretty regularly, too. If that's the girl you mean, then no, she's not here." He turned back to his television, no longer interested in her. 

"You won't mind if I look around a bit then," she said. Vincent just waved one hand dismissively, already absorbed by the action on screen. 

Buffy made two circuits of the motel, once on each level, straining to extend the web of her Slayer's awareness and waiting for the piercing sliver of sensation in her belly that said _vampire near_. Twice around, and she felt nothing. There was no one about other than humans damned in all the ordinary ways. Time was, she could have pinpointed Spike himself at several hundred yards. _Of course, if Spike were still a vampire, we wouldn't have this problem. _ Resigned, she headed back towards Desperados. 

********** 

By the third block, Spike was beginning to lose hope that he'd ever find Allie in the vicinity. He'd poked his head into an uncounted number of clubs, adult video stores and assorted shops, looking for disturbances and asking after her. On any other day, he would have been gratified at the warmth of his reception, but today it only left him frustrated. If anything, there seemed to be less than the usual amount of vampire activity in the neighbourhood. He circled back to the alley where they had first met, at a loss for how to continue. 

"Well I guess you'd have to call us both creatures of habit, hey Spike? Coming back to familiar ground this way." Her voice, once soothing, now poured like cold venom into his ears. She glided out of the shadows with more grace than she'd ever had in life, and he wondered how he possibly could have thought she was a vampire the first time they'd met. In his memory, her rounded form was vibrant and warm with life. Now she was cold, though still voluptuous, and deadly - a poisoned peach. 

The intense red of her lips came not from her lipstick, he realized with a start, but had instead the sheen of fresh blood. Seeing the focus of his gaze, she licked her lips with agonizing slowness. A freshet of blood spilled down her chin and she wiped it up with one finger that she slipped seductively into her mouth. 

"I knew you'd come looking for me here eventually," she said. "I was just settling a little disagreement with Tonio. The bastard actually told me I'd never make it as a dancer, can you believe it? Told me I'd be a ten-dollar whore all my life." 

"You know I can't let walk away from here, Allie." 

"You managed it well enough the other day." 

"That was a mistake." 

"Story of your life, isn't it, Spike? You were failure as a man, and _then_ you were a failure as a vampire. All of that power to do anything you wanted - so what do you do? You get stupid over something you _think_ is love, and run off to find yourself a soul again. Make yourself _weak_ again. She's got you running around doing her dirty work." 

"This is what I have to do. If you know me at all, you should have known that, before you attacked someone I care about." 

"So you immediately have to rush out and protect her? That's noble, Spike. Stupid, but noble. But that's just your speed, isn't it? Protecting little girls? Too bad it took you two days to figure it out." She snarled, her face a mask of rage and pain. "Where the fuck were you all of _my_ life?" 

"Allie..." he began. "I'm sorry. I tried to do everything I could. I almost loved you. You wouldn't let me--" 

She laughed cruelly. "You are just _too_ easy, Spike. A little sob story, and you crumble. 'Oh boo hoo, I've had a bad life,'" she said, in a singsong tone. Then she dropped her voice an octave and added, in a poor imitation of Spike's accent: "'Don't worry, pet. My love will save the day.'" 

"You don't know anything about love," he protested. 

Allie only laughed again. "I know _she_ never wanted you. She didn't want you at all, Spike." Without warning, and with blinding speed she lunged at him, pinning him to the alley wall. 

"She wanted something conveniently man-shaped to get her off. It didn't matter to her if you got anything out of it - who cares if their vibrator has feelings? That's all you were to her, Spike. You were the one who was stupid enough to believe it could have been love." 

"No..." he objected weakly, struggling in her grip. 

"You were _convenient_," she hissed coldly in his ear. "Why would she bother to think of you as a person? Did you really think anything would be different if you had a soul?" 

She giggled with demented amusement. "Love's a game for fools, Spike. You should have learned that by now. It does nothing but blind you to what's really going on. There's pleasure--" She shifted until she held him pinned to the wall by the throat with one hand while the other leisurely explored his body - then her fingers suddenly doubled into a fist that drove hard into his stomach, leaving him bent over gasping for air. "--and there's pain." She dragged him vertical again against the wall. Tugging his shirt loose from his jeans, she raked her nails viciously over his skin, tearing at one nipple until blood welled freely. "And nothing else. And sometimes the pain is pleasure, isn't it?" 

He hissed, but didn't struggle any more in her grasp. "You still want this, don't you?" she asked in a breathy whisper. "A chance to go back, to be strong again and forget how it hurts to be alive. Isn't that what you were always telling me?" 

_I'm not brave. I've never been brave. My whole life, alive and dead, has been about fear. Fear of being unloved, of being alone, of being with someone... And now I'm not brave enough to stick around. I thought I was afraid to die - but now I know I've always been afraid to live. _

Just give in. I'm so tired of fighting. Make me what I was. I don't deserve to be a man, so let me be a monster again. Buffy knows what to do to monsters. He closed his eyes and turned his head to one side, willingly baring his throat to her fangs. Her bite was quick and clean - _she'd always been a quick study_was his unwilling thought - a sharp, slicing pain and then warmth and numbness radiated outward from his wounds. He would have collapsed without her hold on him. 

The world had dimmed to hold only the two of them when she finally withdrew from him. She used one nail to gouge a furrow in her own arm until the dark blood pooled freely, then lifted her wrist to his lips. "You know this is the only way to make the pain go away," she purred tenderly in his ear, nuzzling him again. "I told you - I'll always know what you need." 

Spike held her bloodied wrist to his mouth with one hand, and brought his other arm up to press her more tightly to him as he drank. "It'll all be over soon, sweet. Soon the two of us will be able to take whatever we want." She laughed, smoothing his hair and petting his cheek with her free hand, feeling him shiver. 

"Allie, sweet... I'm so sorry," he murmured when he finally let her wrist drop. She had only enough time to look up at him, confused, before her dark curls blazed up in a glorious corona of flames. The breath she drew to shriek her outrage and pain pulled the fire into her dead lungs. For an instant she seemed to glow from the inside and her eyes became windows into the hell for which she was destined. Then in the next moment nothing remained of her but a cloud of ashes and dust, already being dispersed by the winds. 

Spike's Zippo fell from his hand and clattered to the pavement. He didn't hear it fall, didn't feel the pain of the blisters forming on the skin of his face and neck, and didn't even smell his own singed hair. Now that her support was gone he fell to his knees. He wavered there for a moment; trembling like an ecstatic in the grip of some vision before collapsing in a sprawl, face down in the welcome blackness of the shadows. 

********** 

There was a brief moment as Buffy drew nearer to Desperados that she thought she felt the presence of a vampire, but it vanished too quickly for her to determine a direction. A nameless dread gripped her and she picked up her pace. When she heard the first siren wail in the distance, she broke into a flat-out run. 

She arrived back at the bar just in time to see a sheet-covered figure on a stretcher being wheeled out of the Orange Grove strip club, surrounded by dazed patrons and bystanders. She pushed through the ring of curious onlookers, easily brushing aside hands that tried to hold her back, until she was next to the still, covered form. Before the paramedics could stop her, she had stripped the concealing sheet away. Her knees trembled, as tension she hadn't even realized she felt drained away - the victim was a heavyset man with dark, greasy hair. The only thing familiar about him was the ragged wound in his throat that testified mutely to the cause of death. 

Buffy let the paramedics push her back from the stretcher as she turned to scan the crowd for some sign of Spike. She saw nothing. _Maybe he's inside already. _ Police officers were already fastening crime scene tape over the door to the club, so she set out to find some back way in. 

The alleyway was indirectly lit; the illumination from the streetlights only reached a few yards from the sidewalk. Pulsing light from the ambulance emergency lights washed intermittently over the bricks, staining them with red. If it hadn't been for his pale skin and hair, she wouldn't have seen him at all. He lay face down in the trash-strewn alley, one hand outstretched as though grasping at something just beyond his reach. Twin puncture wounds stood out angrily against the white flesh of his throat, and his lips were stained with blood. 

Buffy knelt, heedless of the muck, and lifted Spike's limp body in her arms to cradle him against her chest. _They always leave me. Damn you, Spike - don't you do this to me. _ "Don't you fucking dare leave me again, you coward!" Her tears streaked the blood and dust on his ravaged face as she held him, rocking helplessly and sobbing. _You did it; you stopped her. I know you did. But it wasn't supposed to be like this. _   
-------------- 

_Not_ the end... 


	25. Phoenix Rising

**Phoenix Rising**

Tears could only last so long and finally there was nothing left in her. She knelt, silent and unmoving, pressing his head to her breast and bringing his hands up across his chest with her free hand. Her fingertips caressed his still body through the thin fabric of his tee shirt. 

Buffy froze abruptly as her fingers detected the tiniest tremor in his chest, no more than the faintest trembling of sensation. She pressed her ear to him and was rewarded with an erratic flutter, _dup... dup, dup_. She surged to her feet, lifting him easily with newfound strength, and ran for the salvation represented by the strobing lights of the ambulance still parked in the street. 

The paramedics had stowed their equipment again and were about to pull away with the body from the Orange Grove when Buffy burst out of the alley in front of them. Before she had gone even a few steps, they had leapt from the cab and were easing Spike's limp form from her arms. "He's lost a lot of blood, but he's still alive," she said, her voice controlled and low. "You have to help him. Please." Only on the last word did her voice threaten to break. 

Within moments, it seemed, they were in radio contact with the hospital, administering intravenous fluids and had Spike intubated and hooked up to various arcane medical devices in preparation for transporting him. After a moment to find an alternate place for the body they were already carrying, the paramedics strapped Spike to the gurney and loaded him into the back of the ambulance. But when Buffy would have climbed in as well, they blocked her way. 

"Are you the next of kin?" one of them asked. 

"No, I..." How could she possibly begin to describe her relationship with this man? 

"Then I'm afraid you can't come with us. We're taking him to Sunnydale Memorial; you'll be able to see him there." _If he makes it_, was the unspoken coda. "Don't worry, miss," he added softly. "We'll do our best for him." With that, he slammed the rear doors and the ambulance was underway, wailing down the street. 

********** 

Less than two hours after they had left Desperados together, Buffy pushed back in through the crowds. She spotted Joey behind the bar and didn't mince words. "I need a phone. Now. It's an emergency." It was her grim expression more than her words that sent him a step back, letting her behind the counter to reach the phone on the wall. 

Buffy let Xander's number ring a dozen times before giving up. Leaning her forehead against the wall, she racked her brain furiously, trying to recall Anya's new number. Finally giving up, she called Giles and Willow. When Willow answered, Buffy didn't waste any time letting her interrupt with questions. "Willow, Spike's been hurt. Paramedics are taking him to Sunnydale Memorial. I need you to get hold of Xander at Anya's. Tell him to pick me up at Desperados, over on Roosevelt. Got it?" 

"Never mind that," interrupted a deep voice from behind her. "I'll take you there myself." 

Buffy let the receiver fall from her ear, Willow's voice continuing tinny and unheeded from the earpiece, and turned to see who had spoken. 

"Jake," the large man said shortly in response to her scrutiny. "Spike works for me. Are you coming, or are you going to waste more time?" 

She brought up the receiver again. "Never mind. I've got a ride," she said, and hung up without waiting for a reply. "Let's go." 

********** 

Buffy strode into the emergency department of Sunnydale Memorial ready to demand answers. Unfortunately, expertise as a Slayer in dealing with vampire-inflicted wounds did not translate automatically into respect from hospital authorities. The nurse handling the triage in the emergency room had little patience with her questions about Spike's condition. 

"If you have information about the John Doe stabbing, you should be speaking with the police," she insisted, lifting her hand to beckon over one of the officers stationed near the main entrance. 

Buffy desperately waved him away. "No! I mean... I don't know anything that would help." There's no criminal left to arrest. "I just want to know how he is. And... his name is William." 

The nurse made a notation on her clipboard. "Miss, if his condition can be stabilized, he'll be moved to a bed in the intensive care unit. At that time, and _not_ before then, family members can be admitted one at a time to see him." 

"It's William Summers," said a voice suddenly behind Buffy. She whirled to see Dawn striding towards her, followed closely by Anya. "He's her husband - my brother-in-law," Dawn added. Buffy frowned at her, trying to convey the furious comments she didn't dare speak lest she attract more unwelcome interest from the attentive triage nurse. Dawn just raised expressive brows. _You've got a better idea how to get in to see him? _

Buffy spared Dawn another glare, then turned back to the nurse. "I'm sorry, it's just that I'm so worried about him that I'm not thinking straight. I don't know what came over me." She gave the nurse a wan smile and concentrated on looking like a distraught, helpless wife and not like a deadly Slayer of demons various and sundry. 

It seemed to work; the nurse thawed far enough that it didn't seem like a smile would shatter her. "In that case... _Mrs_. Summers, you and your family should wait in the lounge down the hall." She indicated a set of double doors leading to a quiet corridor. "Someone will find you there when there's news. Now, if you'll excuse me." She was soon swallowed up again in the chaos of the emergency admissions. 

"You know, Buffy," Anya said, "you could have let us know. On the other hand," she observed brightly, "I don't believe I'm obligated to provide you with a present if you eloped." 

"We are _not_ married," Buffy hissed. "That was just Dawn's idea to get us in to see him - and we'll talk about that later," she added, with a dire look at her sister. 

Dawn let the implicit threat slide easily by her. "Like you could have done better on short notice. Now there won't be any inconvenient questions." 

"Until they want the name of our health insurance provider, or his social security number," Buffy pointed out. 

"The first one's easy enough," Dawn retorted. "We don't have health insurance. Just another charity case, you know." 

"Who's a charity case?" Xander asked, coming up behind them. 

Before dropping her at the hospital, Jake had said 'If there's anything I can do...' _But potentially spending thousands of dollars on a casual employee of only a few months? _ She doubted Jake's philanthropy would extend that far. "We are," she sighed. "And now, thanks to Dawn, they think Spike and I are married. So now they'll be coming after me for all his personal information. And he's never even so much as told me his _last name_." 

"Don't worry, Buffy," Xander said, circling her shoulders with a supportive arm. "We'll come up with something. We always do." 

"That's probably what I should be afraid of," she retorted, still worried, but relieved enough by his unwavering support to laugh weakly. "Are Willow and Giles--?" 

Xander shook his head. "Willow has got a major wiggins about hospitals right now, so they stayed at home. But Giles said he'd come by later, if you needed him." 

_What I need is for Spike to live. I can't believe we've let things go so wrong..._

********** 

In the waiting area, Dawn and Anya were deep in conversation. 

"I've screwed things up big time," Dawn admitted. "I never thought past getting us in to see him." 

"I've noticed that humans often tend to make snap decisions without thinking of the consequences. It's one of the more interesting parts of being in the vengeance business." Her brow furrowed thoughtfully. "Although what if he actually were an upstanding citizen? With immigration, employment and tax records, and a marriage certificate... and everything. After all, Buffy _did_ summon me for vengeance." 

Dawn's eyes widened in sudden comprehension. "He'd _hate_ that! It's perfect." 

"Do you really think so?" Anya asked, anxiously. "I haven't managed a proper vengeance since I got my powers back. But if you think he'd really suffer, then maybe it would be enough to satisfy D'Hoffryn. And since there's that whole blood thing between you and Buffy - which I _still_ don't get, by the way - you should be able to take her place in the wish." 

"Okay. Let's work out exactly what I have to say, so that nothing backfires on us." 

********** 

"Mrs. Summers?" Buffy looked around, startled, wondering who could be looking for her mother _here, now_. A sharp nudge from Dawn reminded her of their ruse, and she stood to meet the doctor. 

"I'm Dr. Hernandez," he said, taking her hand. "I've been working on your husband." 

"Is he--" Buffy couldn't bring herself to say what she feared most, as though doing so would make it true. 

"He's stabilized for now," he said, and she drew a long shuddering breath in relief. "But I need to get your permission to administer an experimental treatment." 

"Experimental? What is it? Why?" 

"It's a blood surrogate. We've managed to get his overall blood volume back up with plasma transfusions and saline, but in order to carry oxygen efficiently, he needs more whole blood or something as close as we can get. Without that, he'll eventually suffer brain damage." 

_Oh god, the thefts. _ "Give me whatever forms you need me to sign." Buffy scrawled her signature quickly, where Dr. Hernandez indicated. 

"Can we donate blood for him?" Dawn asked, coming to stand beside her sister. 

He looked at her carefully. "Are you seventeen?" 

"Yes," she lied promptly. "Well... in two months." 

"I'm her guardian," Buffy interjected quickly. "If I donate blood too, and give my permission for her..." 

"Let's get the two of you typed, then. Come with me." 

"Buffy." She turned to see Xander had risen to his feet. "I'd like to help too." 

With a smile, she beckoned for him to join them, and together they looked back at Anya expectantly. 

"Oh no," she said, shaking her head firmly. "My blood is much too precious to me, and it's staying right here in my body where it belongs." 

In the end, Xander's type B blood was incompatible with Spike's type A, but he gave a donation anyway, to the effusive gratitude of the hospital staff. Buffy and Dawn had better luck; both were typed O positive, with blood suitable for almost anyone to receive. 

They returned to the lounge, identically bandaged, and settled back in to wait for news. 

********** 

_He lay quiescent, insulated from the outside world as though wrapped closely in cotton wool. But when someone moved him, he found that the hollows of his long bones had been filled with ground glass. He would have screamed, but something hard and cold filled the space of his throat. _

He swam up slowly from the depths of unconsciousness, past gape-jawed toothy nightmares only dimly glimpsed in the darkness. He thought he saw a pale, watery light wavering above him, and began to discern noises and what sounded like a multitude of voices. 

"--pulse ox still falling--"   
"--hang another O-neg, we've got to get that back up--"   
"--none left, MVA in four took the last--"   
"--gonna lose--"   
"--permission--"   
"--okay, hang the damn grape juice, then. I hope it works like they say--"   
"--hang on - I've got two units--"   
"--shit! They're still warm--"   
"--fresh out of the family--"   
"--type?"   
"O-pos"   
"--what about--"   
"--he's Rh positive--"   
"--sure?"   
"double checked"   
"--that'll work for him--"   
"--better than nothing--"   
"--or grape juice--"   
"--do it--"   
"--coming up--" 

As he surfaced and opened his eyes, both the light and the pain burned fierce and steady. He knew he must have drowned, because he could feel his chest being worked like a bellows, and he choked and gasped against the irresistible force of it. 

"--coming out of--"   
"--trying to breathe--"   
"--kill the vent--" 

Suddenly he could hear his breath whistling strangely in his ears. There was still something blocking his throat, but he couldn't move to reach for it. 

A blurred and mask-obscured face with kind eyes leaned over him. "Relax. You were on a ventilator to help you breathe. We've turned it off, but you've still got the tube in your throat. If you're ready, we can take it out now." 

His only response was a minute motion that was nonetheless taken for assent. "Right. I need you to count to three with me, and then blow as hard as you can, okay?" 

He _must_ have agreed, because the voice was counting now, and before he could react he felt as though he were being turned inside out. He coughed and gasped, and was more than a little gratified to not see his lungs lying pinkish-grey and wet before him on his chest. Someone slipped a mask over his face and he sucked gratefully at the blessedly cool moist air it provided. His look down his body had shown him tubes and wires emerging from everywhere, and though he couldn't recall _how_ he knew, he understood that it wasn't a good sign at all. 

He flailed wildly with one arm, and managed to catch his fingers in the clothing of the person nearest to him. With his other hand, he clawed the mask away from his face, but no words would come - only a growling wheeze. 

"Shh... don't try to talk yet." The masked figure gently disentangled his hand. 

He _had_ to speak. It was vital, to talk, to communicate in some way. And he had to know. 

"Is this..." he finally managed to force out. "Is this hell?" 

The figure's eyes darted suddenly sideways above the mask in a manner he didn't trust at all, but this one rebellion had stolen all his strength, and he felt himself slipping away. 

_ "What were the results of his tox screen?"   
"--want a psych consult on this one before--"   
"--he's going under again--" _

He decided to stop struggling, and let himself slide back into the cold, black depths. 

********** 

After a time, the blackness receded, and the first sensation he felt was that he was flat on his back once more, only this time he was breathing easily. He could feel the hard outline of the plastic oxygen mask pressing into his cheeks. He shifted experimentally to feel the tug and pull of various medical devices attached in intimate ways all over his body. Behind him, something whirred and clicked with every breath, and a muffled beeping kept time with his pulse. 

New sensations imposed themselves on his awareness; there were fingers entwined in his, and a soft hand caressing his forehead. His eyes opened reluctantly, gummed and crusted from his lengthy unconsciousness, and he had to force them into focus. _I've gone from hell straight into heaven_, he decided, looking at the face over him. 

She found the switch that raised the head of his bed so she could see him better. "I thought we were going to lose you." Unshed tears sparkled in her dark lashes. 

_Don't. Don't cry. Not for me. Never for me_. Memory came back to him, and reason said _hospital_, and _probably going to live_. A wave of self-loathing swept over him, and the anger carried over into his voice as he pulled his mask down to reply. "It would have been kinder to let me go. But then kindness isn't one of the Slayer's known virtues, is it?" 

"Suicide by Slayer, Spike?" The pain he heard in her quiet tone burned like acid. "Would you really have made me do that?" 

"Slayer's job, innit? Get rid of the monsters. No grief, no pity, just... pfft! We're gone. Better all 'round." 

She looked at him with wounded eyes. "Why?" she cried softly. "Why do I always have to be the one who's so damn hard, and cold? It's _killing_ me, Spike. Can't you see that?" 

He went on as though he hadn't heard. "Thought it would be easier for you. If I were only a vampire again." 

"I could never kill you, vampire or not. I thought you knew that by now." She tightened her fingers in his. 

"I've done... terrible things. I don't deserve to live." 

"You've changed," she insisted. "That part of you is gone." 

He shook his head. "The demon in me wasn't the monster, Buffy. It never was." An endless loop of violence played itself out behind his eyes. "Learned that this week. I lost control. I... can't be trusted. Safer for everyone to just put me down." 

He was frightening her in earnest now - and she'd _never_ been truly afraid of him, from the first - with his flat voice and implacable desire to die. 

"I told you," he insisted. "You need to call Angel. He can help you put and end to this charade, once and for all." 

"I _did_ call him - the day after I talked to you. I didn't tell anyone - not even Dawn." 

"And he hasn't swept into town yet, all righteous and full of himself? That's unlike him." 

"If you hate him so much, why do you want to see me with him again?" 

"I don't hate him. He's--" --_better than me_-- "--better for you. He's the one you really love." 

"Don't you tell me who I love! I - I love _you! _" 

He shook his head sadly. "No, you don't. I won't be your consolation prize. You belong with Angel. I can admit that, now." 

"And I don't get any say in the matter? You and Angel just hand me off between you?" Anger _at_ him flattened her fear _for_ him, momentarily. "Well here's a newsflash - he's not coming." 

Spike just lay unresponsive before her, his usually expressive features uncharacteristically void of all emotion. He said nothing, did nothing - and she found herself willing to say anything to fill the unbearable silence. 

"He said no." She tried to hide the way her voice trembled when she said it, but he'd known her for too long and too well for it to escape his notice. "He said that he knew it would never work, and that I would just have to trust him that his reasons were good ones. Then he said he loved me, and believed that I would make the right decision... and then he hung up." Her fists shook where they were clenched at her sides, fingernails cutting bloody crescents into her palms. 

"I would have thought he loved you like I love you - like I loved you," he corrected brutally. "I loved you. And I will always want you. Would have tried to pull heaven's stars from the sky to cast under your feet, if you'd only asked me." 

"I don't need to be worshipped, Spike," she said softly. "I just... want someone to love me. Not the Slayer - _me_. Someone who will stay by me, no matter what stupid mistakes I make." 

He fidgeted, trying to find a more comfortable position on the bed. "Then tell grampa to shift his arse. He doesn't have to be human again. It only took me across half the planet to find someone to make me human again, and all I really wanted was a soul. Someone to just reattach his Peter-Pan's-shadow soul ought to be found practically on his back doorstep." 

Buffy's face set in hard lines, as an uncomfortable truth made itself known to her. "If he wanted to," she admitted slowly, "he would have tried to find a way by now." A deep breath steadied her voice. "Right now, the work he's doing in LA is more important." 

"More important than you?" Spike asked, a hint of his former intensity creeping back into his voice - and just incidentally echoing the words in her heart. 

_Talk about selfish, egotistical, arrogant_-- She administered a sharp mental slap to her inner spoiled brat. "He has to do what's right for him. And at least _he_ isn't giving up!" 

"I killed her," he said flatly, undercutting her before she could get started on a really good tirade. 

_This is what it's all about, isn't it? _ "You didn't have a choice, once she'd been turned." She tried to keep her voice gentle, tried to draw him out. 

"No. I mean that it's because of me that she even considered it. Hell, she _wanted_ it. Wanted to be stronger, faster, more dangerous... She only heard half of what I told her. In many ways I was her sire, more than the one who turned her, because I taught her everything she wanted to know." 

"You can't blame yourself for that. We've both met that type before." 

"There isn't anyone else I _can_ blame." His voice was raw again with remembered pain. 

"Did you... love her?" _Is that why you won't let yourself stay with me? _

He sighed, and cast his mind back over might-have-beens. "It could have come to that, if we'd had more time. Doesn't matter, though - she'd never have returned the sentiment. To Allie, _I love you_ was about equivalent to _I own you_ - and she'd never let that happen. Even if she'd come to understand _I love you_ really means _please, let me be yours_, she'd never have put that much of herself into someone else's hands. She guarded herself too closely to ever offer herself to anyone that way." He closed his eyes and let his head fall back to the pillow. "All the same now, one way or the other." _Oh Allie. You didn't deserve what I did to you. _

"Spike, I--" 

"I'm tired now, Buffy. You should go." He slipped the oxygen mask back over his nose and mouth, cutting himself off from her. 

"I'm not finished--" 

"Get out!" he roared, before collapsing back to the bed, breathing heavily, his eyes squeezed tightly closed in pain. Machinery sounded an angry tone, and behind her Buffy could see curious ICU nurses looking through the observation windows into the room. She gathered herself together and left before they could request it or reprimand her for agitating their patient. 

At the door, she paused for one look back. His tired face was lined with sorrow, and his hands twisted in the blankets that lay loosely over him. The sight made her heart ache. _What do I have to do to help you find your way back from where you're so lost? _

********** 

Spike spent half the night dreading that Buffy would return the next day and that he'd not be able to stay strong but would beg her to let him be hers. He knew that the combination of her stultifying work and her worry for her sister and her friends left her vulnerable, and feared he wouldn't be able to resist playing on her sympathy. _I have to manage to do what's right at least once in my sodding life. _

But it was Dawn whose anxious but smiling face he saw not long after waking. 

"I brought you some flowers, but they said I couldn't bring them into the intensive care rooms. So the nurses have them at the desk." 

"Thank you, Dawn," he said, and meant it. "No one's ever brought me flowers before." 

She just stood for a while and looked at him with huge eyes, until finally working up the courage to ask the question that had been bothering her for days. "What did she mean, when she said you liked her to punish you?" 

Spike closed his eyes. "Some things aren't meant for young ears, Little Bit," he sighed. "Let it go." _It wasn't ever as much as I deserved, in any case. I should know. The punishment you do to yourself is always the most destructive. _

"Buffy said you wanted to kill yourself, that you still wanted to die." She stared at him, pleading wordlessly for him to tell her that it wasn't true, that her sister had been mistaken. He couldn't answer her, and looked away. 

"Buffy said that when she found you, you'd drunk Allie's blood so you'd be a vampire again and she'd have to stake you." 

"Buffy's said entirely too damn much," he replied hotly. 

She threw herself against his chest, sobbing, and his arms came up around her to hold her soothingly. He silently cursed the IV lines and sensor wires that trailed from his arms as he tried to stroke her hair. "You were going to leave me! You promised Buffy you'd always protect me!" 

He gently lifted her away from him so he could see her face. "It was because of me that Allie nearly killed you; because I didn't stop her when I first found she'd been turned. That's hardly protecting you," he said, brushing her tears away with one thumb. 

Dawn refused to listen. "What about all the times you looked out for me when Buffy was gone? Or when I--" her voice was near breaking. 

Tears of his own now squeezed from under his tightly closed eyelids; droplets of molten lead that seared his skin. "I can't be what you want me to be. I'm not that strong. I never was." 

Dawn's face crumpled further. "I hate you!" she cried, pounding at his chest and abandoning any semblance of the poise she'd always tried so hard to cultivate to seem older than her sixteen years. "I _hate_ you!" 

Alarms on the monitors brought nurses running. 

********** 

After a few days, they moved him to a standard ward room of four beds, of which two were momentarily unoccupied. The medical staff had expressed some surprise at the speed with which he was healing, but were still grateful for the opportunity to make more room in the ICU. 

Neither Buffy nor Dawn had returned since their first abortive visits, and he let himself settle into the mindless routine of hospital care. Sleep was no refuge for him; most days found him flipping aimlessly through magazines left by aggressively cheerful hospital volunteers, taking in only one word in five. 

Willow's appearance in the doorway promised a welcome distraction, even if only for a few minutes. She entered, and pulled the privacy curtain around his bed to shield them from the potentially prying eyes of his lone roommate, currently asleep and snoring noisily. 

"You're scaring Buffy, you know," she said without preamble. 

Not wanting to face more well-intentioned probing into his mental state, Spike took refuge in sarcasm. "Am I going to get the full-on Scooby presence, now that I'm almost mended? Who's next? Giles? Harris? To what do I owe the singular honour?" 

Willow shifted immediately into a _take-no-prisoners_ mode. "How about to the fact that you're treating people who care about you like shit? Good enough reason for you?" 

He sneered. "I thought I could come to terms with all the horrors I'd committed as a vampire. Make some peace. But then I...No one knows what it feels like, to have done what I've done - _as a man_ - and still live." 

"You mean how you don't know if you're going to cry, or scream, or throw up - or maybe all three at once?" He looked up at her, belated awareness of with whom he was speaking dawning in his downcast eyes. "I won't tell you to snap out of it, if you won't tell me I can't possibly understand," she said. "Deal?" 

Willow pulled up one of the room's extra chairs beside the bed and settled herself comfortably into it. "You came and told me things that I didn't want to hear, but desperately needed to. I'm just here to return the favour. Or maybe I'm just here to keep you company while you talk. You decide." 

To his mingled surprise and relief, Spike found himself letting the whole sorry story about his life of the past year spill from his lips. He grew hoarse in the retelling, and Willow filled a cup with water for him, and held the bent straw to his lips while he drank. 

She listened without comment, but her eyes widened with shock and her face paled at some of what she heard. When he described his assault on Tonio, she winced. And when he told her what he had had to do to Allie, her eyes misted in empathy. It had been seven years since Xander had told her what he'd done to Jesse, but she still remembered every word, and the pain in his voice. 

"I'm sorry. I can't imagine how awful you must have felt." Willow chose her following words with extreme care. "But did you ever think that maybe you were using her? You thought because you paid her she'd always be there for you, and you wouldn't have to try to find someone who could care about you for yourself." 

He frowned, clearly never having looked at it from that angle. 

"I mean... I know you cared about her, but... She'd almost always do what you wanted, because you paid her. You didn't have to risk yourself at all, trying to find someone to care about you in return. She was safe." 

"Who gave you the right to criticize my relationships?" 

"Relationship?" she said incredulously. "She was a _prostitute_, Spike. You had to pay her to sleep with you." 

He turned his face away on the pillow. "It's easy to just say 'she was a prostitute', or 'she was a vampire'. I may only have gotten what I paid for, but it was mine. I did care about her. I loved her - as her friend. And ultimately, I failed her. As a vampire, she became an abomination, taking everything I told her, everything we'd shared and turning it inside out. Dragged everything into muck and filth. No one sees past that; no one remembers her for anything else. 

"But I'm the only one, now, who knew the woman. She was lonely, and scared sometimes - which she hid with cruel words to keep people away - but she could have been so much more than she was. I could see it, there behind her eyes. Maybe if I'd had longer to tell her I believed in her. 

"When she was eleven years old, her uncle raped her." Willow's eyes closed in sympathy, and Spike went on. "And then he took her for ice cream. Told her she was his sweet, pretty whore - and that she'd never amount to much else. Told her enough times, and she believed it. Her father - the drunken sot - said she must have asked for it, the way she dressed." He rubbed at his face wearily. "How could I fix something like that?" 

"You can't. It's something she would have had to do for herself." 

"I had to try. But if she'd known what I did to Tonio on her behalf, her only thought would have been that another man was trying to interfere in her life. And it was all for nothing in the end. Even if she'd lived, I'd still have to pay for what I'd done." 

Willow surveyed his injuries with a critical eye. "Seems to me like you already are." 

"This?" His laugh held no trace of humour. "This is nothing." 

A nurse entered the room bearing a tray of medications and diverted their attention. "I'm sorry dear," she said to Willow. "Visiting hours are over for the day. You can come back and seem him tomorrow, if you like." She bustled professionally about the room, making further private conversation impossible in any case. 

Willow levered herself up out of her chair and turned to go, then hesitated. "I know how it feels to want to make yourself pay. I'm keeping the geas," she admitted. 

He nodded understanding. "Will you come back tomorrow? There's something I'd like you to find out for me. And... it's good to have someone to talk to." 

She agreed, smiling to acknowledge receipt of his unspoken apology, and left. Spike accepted his allotment of pills from the nurse, swallowed them under her watchful eye, and closed his eyes to begin the wait. 

********** 

"I hate this place," Willow said conversationally the next day as she entered his room. "Hospitals have this... _smell_, you know? You just can't get used to it." 

"I'm sorry. If I'd known, I'd not have asked you to come back." He pushed his tray table aside to make more room for her. 

"It's all right. Having something to complain about is almost as good a distraction as researching, at least for a little while. I've got my laptop, so I thought I'd come by and-- Oooh... is that strawberry Jell-O?" she asked, catching sight of his lunch, barely touched on his table. 

A weak smile tugged at his mouth. "Knock yourself out, Red." 

Willow took the dish and settled cross-legged on the end of Spike's bed. "So," she began, after a large mouthful, "you want me to look something up for you." 

"I want to know if there's an official police record of my... assault on Tonio." 

"That's simple enough." Willow reached into the bag at her side and pulled out her laptop and a phone cord. "I'll just plug in and see what's the what." 

"Didn't pay for a phone," Spike observed, as Willow hooked her computer to the room's phone jack. 

"Oh, that doesn't matter," she replied. "A little tweak here, and... there!" She settled back onto the bed at his feet, tucked the wings of her hair securely behind her ears again, and began typing in earnest. "Just have to access some of the police files." 

Spike reflected that it didn't take magic to make Willow one of the most dangerous people in the world, and that it was a very good thing she didn't realize it. In only minutes she had found what she wanted. 

"Here he is. Tonio - Antonio Vigna. Hmm. He's got quite the record: assault; racketeering; pandering... But there's no record of a recent assault on him. He never reported it. Must have thought it was some rival challenging him for territory. And the injuries reported at the autopsy match those that Allie inflicted, before she killed him, not... what you did. You're in the clear." 

"Never that," he replied darkly. 

"Spike," she said gently. "I'm not in jail either, though I should be. What would they do - lock us up because we _said_ we'd done something? There will never be _that_ much room in prison. We'll still pay, both of us, because we can't live with ourselves unless we do. But maybe we have to find a way to pay it forward to the people who are still living." 

He frowned, an idea forming in the back of his brain. "There's something else I'd like you to check out for me, Red. Something about the blood." 

"What is it?" 

"Somewhere in the industrial district, probably near Desperados, there's a warehouse that's a base for the theft ring - and more, if I'm right. See if you can find anything, any records that don't quite gel, something to help me locate them." 

"Oh, that narrows it down a lot. Could you possibly be _less_ helpful?" 

"Don't snark, Red. It doesn't suit you. And lack of information's never held you back before." 

"Well..." She nodded, in spite of herself. "Okay. I'll see what I can do." 

"When you do find something, don't tell Buffy. Come straight to me." 

"You shouldn't keep her out of this, you know." But some part of her thrilled to the secret, and to the fact that Spike simply _assumed_ that she'd be able to do what he had asked. 

"Just call it my reason to go on, then. Something I have to do for myself - and for Allie." 

Willow nodded. _That_ was something she could understand. 


	26. Picking Up the Pieces

_No, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth. It only feels that way, because I think it's been six (or even seven - shudder) weeks since the last update. I was away on holiday for three weeks, and then I guess my brain got used to the whole_ not working _idea. I had a heck of a time pushing out this next bit. _

On the positive side, it is by far the largest chapter to date, has the most scene changes, some fighting, some revelations, some confessions... it's got the goods! And it marks the beginning of the end. Chapter 27 will be up in a few days - no really, I already have it beta'd and ready to format - and then 28 in the first week of September. This chapter just marks the last one that was essentially completely unwritten when I got to it. Hell, I wrote most of the last chapter and epilogue more than a year ago! 

So enough wasting your time (and padding my word count). Here it is. Talk to me? Please?   
---------------- 

**Picking up the Pieces**

"I need to know everything about Spike's history," Buffy demanded without preamble when Giles opened the door early in the morning. "Tell me what you know, or find me the right Watcher's diary or dusty old tome." 

Giles cinched the belt of his dressing gown more securely around his waist. "Are you certain? It doesn't make for pleasant reading." 

"I'll bet. But I have to know, when I ask him, if he's telling me the truth. I don't want any more secrets." 

********** 

"Are you finding what you had hoped?" 

Buffy looked up and nodded absent thanks when Giles set the steaming cup of tea on the table by her side. She closed the book with a sigh. "You know, five years ago if you'd asked me, I'd have had no trouble at all telling apart the man from the vampire. 'Not the man, but the thing that killed him,' just like you told me." 

He settled in to the chair opposite her. "Angel and Angelus certainly provided an object lesson in that regard." 

"No kidding. But now with Spike, it seems completely different. Or maybe I should say that almost _nothing_ is different. He's a little sadder, a little less cocky - but he's still _Spike_. Only more so, if you see what I mean. And then I sit here and I read about the carnage he left behind him and I wonder... if he hasn't really changed all that much, then how do I... how can we ever manage to put it behind us?" 

Giles weighed his words carefully. "You've decided that 'we' is something wise to pursue? You and Spike, together?" 

"It was all really clear once. I _knew_ that when the end came all I would have would be myself. Maybe that's why Faith and I could never connect - we weren't even supposed to even _exist_ at the same time. One of those weird science ideas that Dawn and Willow like so well, about how two objects can't be in the same space... or something." She shrugged. 

"It helped, when my friends, and even my mom, found out that I was the Slayer. I had all of you, and you loved me, and it made me stronger. Gave me a better reason to keep fighting. But no matter how much I talked about it to Willow, or how much my mom tried to be the best and most supportive Slayer's mom ever, no one ever _really_ knew how lonely it was. But Spike knows. More now than ever before. 

"Underneath it all, nothing's really changed. I still have that expiration date," she said bluntly. "But maybe... I won't have to be alone. And neither will he." 

He had been so certain, when he had returned to England last year, that what Buffy needed was to learn to make decisions for herself. How could he complain, now that she was doing just that, for all that it scared him so? 

_I had resigned myself to the fact that you were going to die young. It's what we all trained for, after all, and considered ourselves lucky to be given a chance to be Watcher, and not just another trainee. But then you survived, time and again, and it seemed as if you could make anything possible. I grew to love you so... Was it just my own cowardice that made me leave so that I wouldn't have to be here to see you die one day? _

"You're the Slayer, Buffy, and a grown woman. I shouldn't be the one to tell you what to do anymore. Not that I ever was able to," he added wryly. 

She smiled. "I'm sorry that I wasn't always - okay, _ever_ - the model Slayer for you. I never really did get into the whole 'following orders' thing. Probably got you loads of demerit points with the Council." 

"I think that perhaps blind obedience is greatly overrated. You were everything a Watcher... that _I_ could ever have hoped for. And more." _So much so that even a vampire would deny his basic nature and change for you. _

"So, as my friend, and not my Watcher - who I never listened to anyway - what should I do about Spike?" 

"I suppose that depends very much on what you truly feel for him, Buffy." He removed his glasses and looked down at her tenderly. "I won't interfere any more in what you choose. I should have known, from all our experience together, that your heart will lead you to places that logic would never dare - and we're often the better for it. While you have the chance, make the choice that will make you happy." 

********** 

All four men looked up as the visitor entered, but three of them soon turned away to other distractions. 

"Good morning, Spike," Giles said evenly. 

"Name something good about it," he retorted sourly. 

"You've lost none of your special charm, I see. And yet you still have a clutch of admirers." He nodded towards the ledge where Dawn's flowers had been joined by several other bouquets from his coworkers at Desperados. Corey had come with awkward sympathy, and Tina with cautious smiles. Jake had been his usual booming self. Spike thought he must have been sufficiently surly because Jake was the only one to come by more than once - to tell him that both the staff and many customers were taking up a collection to help defray his medical expenses, which only added to his shame. 

"Where's Red?" he demanded, annoyed that Giles had so easily made him remember what he'd rather forget. "She's the only person I'm interested in seeing today." 

"I've asked Willow to remain outside for a moment. There is something I wish to discuss with you." 

"Why? You planning on going slumming, Rupes?" 

"You play the part of the fool well, Spike. But I don't believe it any more. You told me yourself what you feel for Buffy, and Willow has told me some of what you did for her. There's a great depth to you that you've been hiding from us." He took a moment to remove and polish his glasses. He probably wasn't even aware he did so anymore, it had become simply an unconscious technique for focussing his thoughts. 

Giles replaced his glasses securely on the bridge of his nose and continued. "Knowing what I do of your history, I suspect your education may rival mine. Your Greek and Latin are likely better, and you've shown that you understand and speak a number of demonic tongues as well. And no matter how dissolute your last century, you can't have helped but pick up lifetimes of experience in a variety of areas." 

"This is all very flattering, Rupert, but do get to the point," Spike complained. "I've got things to do." 

Giles settled himself into the chair at his bedside. "I have something of a proposal to put to you." 

"A _modest_ proposal? Best make it swift, then." 

Giles returned him only a pained look. "Waste of a good education," he muttered under his breath. 

"I'm sure that you knew that I had resigned as Buffy's Watcher and returned to England. While I am still convinced that I made the choice that was best for her, it damaged the trust we once had between us. There's been a certain hesitancy at times when I..." 

"I've taught her everything that I could, but she will still be much more likely to survive if there is someone in her life whose skills complement her own. Someone who will care about her welfare as deeply as I do, and who will help prepare her for what she may have to face. Someone she trusts. In short, she still needs a Watcher, and I believe that you may be the one who would best serve her in that capacity." 

Spike was aghast. Whatever he might have expected, this was not it. "Me? A Watcher? Bloody hell, Rupert, you're off your chump." 

"Yes, well... she'll take your advice; she won't take mine any more. And I believe you'll never abandon her." He looked away for a moment. "I may even be able to convince the Council that a small stipend is in order - just a pittance, I'm afraid, since you don't really possess any formal training. But given your, ah, extensive field experience..." 

"Will wonders never cease. There's only one thing wrong with your plan." 

"And that is?" 

"I _am_ abandoning her. One last thing I can do for her, and then I'll be gone." 

"I don't understand--" Giles stammered. This was not the same man who had confronted him at Buffy's house, declaring that he would rather die than live in a world without her. 

"No, you don't," Spike agreed maddeningly. "Now get the hell out and let me see Willow." 

********** 

"I am so sorry." Willow surveyed the four faces turned to her, one by one. Dawn was hesitant, Xander forgiving, Anya suspicious and Buffy... inscrutable. She pressed on. "Sorry about everything that happened last year." 

"You don't have to apologize to us, Will," Xander protested. 

"Yes she does," Anya insisted. "That's the _least_ she has to do." 

"Yes, I do," Willow agreed before Xander could take issue with his demon girlfriend yet again. "Xander, even if _you_ don't need to have me apologize, it's still something _I_ need to do, a step I have to take for myself. And Anya's right. It _is_ the very least I can do, and it will never come close to being enough for the things I did." 

Anya settled back in her chair, mollified. 

Willow turned to Buffy. "I think you're the one I've hurt the most." 

Reflex made Buffy shake her head, but Willow wasn't going to let her give in that easily. 

"All I knew is that I was hurting, and I had the power to do something about it. I didn't want to think about where you might have gone; I just convinced the others that you were trapped in some hell dimension and that we had to bring you out. I never thought what it would do to you. " She looked down for a moment, before continuing. "And I still can't say that I'm sorry you're not dead - but I am sorry I put you through hell after I brought you back." 

"I'm not sorry to be here, Will. Not anymore. However it happened." 

"I was selfish. It's not a very nice thing to learn about yourself." 

"Everyone is selfish," Anya said. "Just not everyone has the power to indulge themselves. That's why so many people make wishes. And not even just vengeance ones. All sorts." 

"Sometimes I think that the only people who should be given power are the ones who don't want it," Dawn said. 

"That's ridiculous," Anya retorted. "Everyone wants power. Look at Buffy." Everyone did, of course, and Buffy frowned. "You can't tell me that she'd go back to being who she was before she was the Slayer." 

"I so would," Buffy exclaimed hotly. "You have no idea what it's like--" 

"You'd still be in LA; you'd _never_ have moved to Sunnydale." Anya ticked off points on her fingers. "You wouldn't have met Willow or Xander..." 

Buffy took up the count in her mind. _Or Angel. Or Giles. My parents wouldn't have divorced - but I'd still be an only child. _ She slid her hand over Dawn's where it lay next to hers on the couch and laced their fingers together, then gave her sister what she hoped was a reassuring smile. Dawn squeezed her fingers in return. 

_I'd never have met Spike. I'd never have seen him undergo such heart-stopping changes, trying to become a better man. I never would have..._ Her mind shied away from completing that thought. 

_A lot of people have died, but how many more have lived because of what I'm able to do? Isn't that how Spike's argument went? It's not licence to do as I please, but it's a damn good reason to get out of bed in the morning. _

"You're right," Buffy acquiesced. "If I really take the time to think about it, I wouldn't change anything. I've been able to make a difference here, and there are too many things in this world I'm grateful for to want to go back to what I was before. I wouldn't be the same person if I weren't the Slayer - and I think I like the person that I am." 

"You've learned the _Peter Parker_ lesson," Anya observed with satisfaction. 

"The what?" Buffy raised her eyebrows. Xander just sighed; he knew what was coming. 

"You know... 'With great power comes great responsibility.' He doesn't look for a way to get rid of his powers, because he knows what good he can do with them. Of course, this means that his life is all angst and drama as a result, suitable for multi-episode story arcs." 

"Anya, that's not..." Xander began. "Actually... that's a pretty good analogy." 

She beamed at his approval, and at finally feeling as though she were making a useful contribution to a Scooby meeting. 

"Angst and drama," Buffy mused. "That certainly describes all our lives, doesn't it?" 

"Oh, I didn't mean Willow," Anya explained blithely. "She was more _Dark Phoenix_ than _Spiderman_." 

"Hey! What about you?" Willow protested. "I haven't seen _you_ being all responsible with your power." 

"I'm a demon. There are different rules." 

"That must be convenient," Dawn said sarcastically. 

"Oh, it is," Anya agreed, glad she was being clearly understood. "Very much so. But you all see my point: Buffy wouldn't give up her power that made her life what it is. And _especially_ not now that she's in love with Spike." 

There was dead silence except for the sounds of rustling fabric and creaking seat springs as everyone turned to look at Buffy. Again. The colour drained from her face. _I'm not ready for this..._

"_Do_ you love him?" Willow asked her gently. "Because it's okay if you love him. It's not up to us to decide." 

_That's what Tara told me. I think I might have already felt something by then, but I couldn't admit it. Who would understand? But now... I told Giles I wanted to know the truth about Spike's past. If I can't tell the truth about how I feel to my friends, then how can I ever hope to tell it to Spike? Or even understand it myself? _

Buffy took a deep breath. "When I was with Angel, I gave him my heart and soul. It nearly destroyed me when I had to send him to hell - and then killed something in me when he came back, and we couldn't be together and he left. I'll never love _anyone_ the way I loved Angel." 

"Spike isn't Angel," Dawn observed quietly. "You can love him like Spike." 

Buffy went on as though she hadn't heard. "But although I know he loved me - still loves me - with all _his_ heart and soul, he never really needed me the way I needed him. That was why he could leave me. That was why he didn't understand how much it hurt when he told me I should have a normal life. What did I care about _normal_? I wanted _him_." 

Wordlessly, Dawn handed her a tissue to blot the tears she hadn't realized had pooled in her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks. 

"Then when I met Riley, I remember thinking that Angel would have to be happy for me because I had found someone normal that I could love. But this time, no matter how hard I tried to love him - and I _did_ love him - I didn't _need_ him. And he knew it." 

"But you need Spike?" Anya asked, wishing that Buffy would finally get to the point. "And you love him?" 

"He's never lied to me," Buffy said, sidestepping the question. "Not once. And if I'm being a bitch, he'll tell me as much to my face without mincing words." 

"Honesty's a good trait in a man," Anya observed. "More men should be like that. But not about our hair. Or our weight. Or--" 

"Buffy needs us to listen now, Ahn, not offer opinions," Xander interrupted, taking her at her word. 

Buffy smiled weakly at him. "I trust him. And I can't imagine now what my life would be like if he hadn't been in it. Is that love? I don't know. It's... harder than it was before, to figure that out. But I know that he needs me, and I... I need him too. It's like he completes a part of me that I didn't even know was missing, but now I can't live without." 

"Then you should go after him, Buffy, if he's the one who will make you happy now," Xander said. 

"Why is it that _you_ can offer an opinion on Buffy's love life, but I can't?" Anya queried irately. "Is your opinion more valuable than mine? Is it because I'm not human? And I thought you didn't like Spike, anyway." 

"Yeah, what's made you so willing to take Spike's side in this, Xander?" Willow asked, trying to defuse the incipient argument, and honestly curious as to the reason for the about-face in his attitude towards vampires - or in this case, an ex-vampire. _More specifically_, she thought, _in his attitude toward Buffy dating_ anyone _not_ him, _vampire or not_. 

Xander shrugged sheepishly. "I never liked Angel. I mean, we all know how dangerous he can be when his soul's gone. And I suppose it was really mostly because of jealousy that Buffy would choose him and not me." He patted Anya's hand absently, lost in memory, as though to reassure her it was all in the past. "But I've grown up a bit since then, and if I'm going to be fair then I have to admit I admire what Angel's chosen to do in LA. When he's cursed with his soul, he finally gets around to doing some good with it. He's playing the cards he was dealt." He took a deep breath, struggling for words to explain the contradictory emotions inside. "But Spike wasn't cursed. He... he bullied the dealer into giving him a new hand. A _better_ hand. And he never gives up." He looked at Anya, as though trying to tell her that _he_ wouldn't be giving up any time soon either. Soothed by his clear devotion, she relaxed against him, snuggling in closely. 

"Until now." Buffy's voice was tired, and she felt far older than her twenty one years - no, twenty _two_ now, because hadn't another birthday slipped by unnoticed in the chaos that was her life? "You should have heard him, denying that he ever cared about me, trying to make me leave. It's like he's trying to turn himself inside out, and it hurts _so much_ just to see it. That's why I haven't been able to go back to see him," she admitted, shamefaced. 

"Buffy, if you love him... you have to tell him," Willow said. "Maybe that's the only thing that can help him now. Make him believe you." She looked over at Xander with a soul-deep love in her own eyes. "Because that's the only thing that reached _me_, when I needed it." 

*********** 

Buffy approached the door to the room Spike shared with some trepidation. She had rehearsed with Willow and Dawn some of the things she might say to him, but none of them, herself included, had felt they would be able to predict his likely responses. Taking a deep breath, Buffy pushed open the door. "Spike?" 

Spike's bed was empty, the sheets in disarray. She thought that he might have been taken away for therapy or something, until she saw the meal tray sitting untouched on his side table. A small unconscious frown creased her features. Buffy moved further into the room, looking carefully at the other occupied beds. _I'm sure I have the right room..._

Another idea occurred to her, and she tapped on the closed door to the bathroom. "Spike? It's Buffy. I need to talk to you." 

The door opened suddenly, startling her. "He's not here," said the dark bearded face that appeared in the opening. "He took off." 

"What?" she gasped. "When?" 

"Prob'ly after lunch. Leastways, I ain't seen him since then." The man - clearly another patient in his thin cotton hospital gown and robe - walked past her, settled back into his own bed and turned on his television. "That's all I know, sister." He shrugged apologetically, and then let his attention be absorbed again by quality programming likely involving car chases and explosions. Or possibly women bouncing on trampolines. 

_'Network for Men,' my ass. They should just come right out and call it 'the fourteen-year-old's all neat things network.' _

A sound at the door made Buffy turn. A nurse entered with a tray of medications for the room's occupants and nodded pleasantly in greeting. She handed out the paper cups of pills to the other patients, but when she took in the state of Spike's bed, she set the tray down, and pulled back the rumpled sheets to reveal concealed IV baggies and assorted tubes and needles. 

"Where's Mr. Summers?" 

A small twinge of fear twisted Buffy's gut. "That's what I was going to ask you." 

"And you are?" 

"Buffy Summers. Ah... his wife." 

"I don't remember meeting you." Her disapproval was clear from her tone. 

_So I've only been here once since they brought him in. It's complicated. _

She looked Buffy over sharply. "Mrs. Summers, we really must protest. Your husband is in no condition for you to remove him from the hospital." 

For the second time in minutes, Buffy was stunned nearly speechless. "What? I didn't--" 

"You must understand that doing so is completely against medical advice, and the hospital and staff can't be held responsible for complications in his condition." Her fear was obvious. 

Buffy stared her down. "I did _not_ take him out of here... _Linda_," she read from the woman's nametag. "Anything that happens to him _is_ your responsibility - he could have vanished _hours_ ago, and you've only just noticed it _now_?" 

"He was always so quiet... and we've been so busy..." Realizing that this argument wasn't going to win her any points with Buffy, Linda turned instead to inspect Spike's bed again. "He pulled out the IVs, the catheter - everything - and just walked out, from the looks of things." 

Buffy's stomach fluttered at the thought of what that might have involved, and covered the feeling with anger. "He's barely _able_ to walk yet. Isn't that what you just told me?" 

"I assumed that you--" 

"Well, I _didn't_. Can't you find him?" 

"I'll call security. He shouldn't even be out of bed." 

With Linda gone, Buffy inspected Spike's bed, table and locker for any clues to his whereabouts. In the bottom of the locker, she found a small folded plastic bag labelled 'patient personal effects'. Clearly it had lain there untouched since he had been transferred into the room. She rummaged through his meagre belongings, at a loss for what to do next. She picked out a wallet and flipped absently through it until something caught her eye. _When did Spike ever care if he had a driver's licence? Or even a wallet...? I suppose if he needed it for some scam..._ Looking at it more closely, she only grew more puzzled. His name was listed as _William Summers_, and the home address shown was her own. More inspection of the wallet revealed further mysteries, such as the resident alien's green card and a months-old paycheque stub from Desperados made out in the false name Dawn had given for him only a week before. 

_What the hell is going on? _

Her attention was diverted from this new puzzle by the sound of Linda's urgent voice on the hospital PA calling security to the floor, and realized that the last thing she needed right now was to get further tangled up in hospital bureaucracy. She headed for the stairs and the payphones in the hospital entrance. _If he has as much of a head start as I'm afraid of, hospital security isn't going to be enough. I need help. _

It took her a few moments to put together enough change for the phone, but then her fingers dialled the old familiar number without conscious thought. 

"Hello?" 

"Xander, Spike's disappeared from the hospital; no one knows where he is. Can you pick up Willow and meet me at--" 

"No." Xander knew exactly what Buffy's shocked expression would be, as though it had traveled to him straight down the telephone line. 

"What--?" was all she managed. 

"I'm sorry Buffy, but this time I can't," he went on. "Anya's here. She's in pretty bad shape right now, because we've just had a visit from D'Hoffryn and some of his goons. I guess the last wish she granted didn't go over too well with the boss - he's revoked her powers again. To make it worse, he's also threatened to have her killed if she so much as _thinks_ of trying to contact him again." 

He tried hard to keep his voice gentle. "Buffy, you know I love you - and if it meant the end of the world then I'd be the first one there by your side. But Anya needs me right now - like maybe Spike needs you - and if I really want this to work, I've got to be here for her. She's got to know she's number one in my life." 

Buffy leaned her forehead against the cool plaster of the wall and closed her eyes. "I understand, Xander. Really, I do. I hope... good luck to you both. If there's anything I can... if there's anything you need slayed... call me, okay?" 

The relief in Xander's voice was palpable. "You know I will. And Buffy?" He concentrated carefully so he wouldn't begin his next sentence with 'if'. "When you find him, don't let him go again. Do what you have to do. Make it right." 

Buffy couldn't answer. She made a sound that she hoped he would take as 'goodbye' and hung up the phone. 

After several deep breaths - and another frantic search for coins - she picked up the handset again and dialled Willow's number. When her friend answered, she wasted no time. "Willow, Spike's missing. I think he left the hospital some time after lunch, and I need your help to find him." 

Willow was silent for so long that Buffy was afraid something was wrong with the phone. "Willow? Are you still there?" 

"Buffy... I think I know where he's gone." 

She sagged against the wall in relief. 

"We'll be there in ten minutes." 

********** 

Buffy was so busy looking for Giles's nondescript rental car that she didn't notice her own mother's SUV pulling up - she still couldn't think of it as hers - until the horn beeped for her attention. Peering in through the tinted glass, she was astonished to see Dawn behind the wheel, with Willow belted into the passenger seat. Frowning, she pulled open the rear door and wedged the bag with Spike's personal effects in beside the satchel of assorted weapons on the back seat, and climbed in herself. 

"What are you doing here?" Buffy demanded as Dawn pulled away abruptly from the curb. "And when did you get your licence?" 

"I didn't," Dawn confessed with a grin, ignoring her sister's dark look. "But I _did_ take driver's ed this year," she went on earnestly. 

"Yeah, Buffy, Dawn's a great driver," Willow insisted, though Buffy looked scandalized at this mutinous show of support for her little sister. "Besides, licence or not, no reasonable person should ever have to be a passenger with you." 

Buffy finally had to let her face crack into a smile as the two of them giggled. At least things seemed to have thawed between them. 

"And I can help you out if there's a fight, too. Spike taught me a lot of stuff, and I've been practicing every day." Dawn caught Buffy's gaze in the mirror, and braced herself for the automatic rejection of her offer. To her surprise, her sister only nodded. 

The mention of Spike's name had thrown cold water on Buffy's emotions again. "_If_ we find him. Will, you said you knew where he went?" 

When she turned in her seat to face Buffy, Willow's face was troubled. "When I saw him this morning, I had information for him on a possible location for the vampires involved with the blood bank robberies." 

"And you didn't tell me?" Buffy protested. "Will--" 

"Spike asked me not to. He said that it was something he needed to do for himself. His reason to go on living." _I couldn't take that away from him. _

"He'll be too weak to defend himself properly, and he's probably headed into the midst of a nest of vampires." She had a sudden terrible insight, as though she could clearly see all of Spike's motivations laid out bare before her. "He meant something he could do _to_ himself. He's not looking for a reason to live - he's trying to find another way to die." 

The truck lurched as it picked up speed, but no one commented. 

"So, is Xander meeting us there?" Dawn asked. "If we're picking him up, I need to turn up ahead." 

"No. It's just us on this one." Buffy filled them in on her earlier conversation. 

Dawn's lips pursed in a silent whistle. "Wow. Good for Xander." 

Willow nodded. "Yeah. But his timing stinks." 

Strained laughter diverted their thoughts for only a moment. Searching for a new distraction so she didn't have to let her mind dwell on what they might find when they located Spike, Buffy pulled his wallet from the bag on the seat beside her. "What do you make of this?" she asked, holding out the faux driver's licence to Willow. 

"Nice picture?" Willow took it and read out the name and address in a wondering voice, turning it over in her hands. "I guess we have _another_ mystery on our hands." 

Dawn had paled as soon as Willow had started reading. "Um," she ventured, wondering just how she was going to talk her way out of this one. "_That_ one I can explain..." 

********** 

Dawn brought the vehicle to a halt outside a nondescript warehouse with only one tire up on the curb. Buffy climbed out first and looked it up and down. "Are you sure this is the place, Will? 'Cause it looks kinda non-headquarters-y." 

Willow joined her on the sidewalk. "I checked everything on this place: deliveries, shipments, utility payments - you name it. Too many things didn't add up for it to be a legitimate business." 

"It does seem awfully quiet for being the centre of vampire activity, though," Dawn said as she came around the front of the truck, Buffy's bag of weapons over her shoulder. 

Willow looked uncertain. "Well... whether or not there actually are vampires here, this is the address I gave to Spike. So that makes it the best place to start looking for him." 

"Right." Buffy rummaged in the bag that Dawn held open before her to retrieve a couple of stakes, which she tucked into her waistband. Dawn armed herself in turn with more stakes, but added a pistol crossbow and a quiver of bolts for it that she strapped to her forearm. 

When Willow went to pick out something for herself, Buffy laid a hand on her arm. "You don't have to come with us, Will." 

"Hey," Willow protested. "Let me remind you that even before the big magic, Xander and Cordy and I patrolled together. We did a good job, too." 

"I remember," Buffy said fondly. "You dusted six out of ten on average, right? I just want you to be sure." 

"I _am_ sure. Don't make me pull out my resolve face..." 

Buffy made no more protest. With her in the lead the trio approached the doors. They opened outward to reveal a small reception area, complete with desks and cabinets, but no sign of life. A glass-walled private office took up one corner of the room, and double swinging doors presumably led to the warehouse space that made up the bulk of the building. 

"Hello?" Buffy ventured quietly as they entered. When there was no response, they readied their weapons and moved in. Buffy peered over the counter that ran the width of the space. "This is the place, alright," she said. 

"You can feel vampires in here?" Dawn asked. 

"Don't have to," Buffy replied, pointing at something behind the counter. "Look." She _could_ feel it now though, a subsonic buzz that settled like an ache into her bones. Vampires. A lot of them. 

A man in a lab coat lay sprawled face-up and unconscious on the floor behind the counter. Wire-rim glasses hung askew from one ear, and blood trickled slowly from his nose and the large and very painful-looking lump at his temple. 

Willow was at the man's side in a moment, fingers reaching for his throat. "He's human, and he's still alive," she reported. "Buffy, he's still bleeding. That means this couldn't have happened more than about ten minutes ago." 

"Nice to know we're not too late for the party," Buffy observed dryly. "Will, do what you can for him and call 9-1-1. Dawn and I will check out the back." Despite her earlier protests of wanting to be involved, Willow looked relieved. 

Buffy eased open one of the large doors and peered into the dim warehouse. Nothing visible moved within. 

Dawn manoeuvred to look in over Buffy's head. "Do you think we should scout around from up there first?" she asked, referring to a set of stairs just inside the doors leading to a catwalk around the perimeter of the building. A loud splintering crash resonated throughout the space before Buffy could reply. 

"Oh yeah. Because Spike's always been known for his stealth," she sighed, when the echoes had died away. "Let's move. But stay behind me." 

They came around the corner into a scene out of hell. The warehouse lights were dimmed because much of the power had been diverted to the dozens of commercial refrigeration units lining the walls, stacked high with plastic baggies of presumably human blood that glowed like rubies in the gloom. Weak light from the refrigerators, filtered by the blood, cast a lurid pall over the figures before them. 

Spike stood unsteadily in the open space, challenged by three vampires while a dozen or more grinned down in anticipation from their various perches on shelves and walkways overhead. From somewhere he had obtained a sword, which he held upright before him, pale light shivering along its length as his hands trembled. He was stained crimson from his neck to his knees, and he stood in a lake of blood spilled out from a glass-fronted case that now lay overturned and shattered. 

A bowstring _thrummed_ behind her, and Buffy saw one of the vampires facing Spike explode into dust. She looked back over her shoulder to see Dawn calmly loading another bolt into the crossbow. 

"Well, you said there wasn't much point in stealth any more," she said defensively, in response to Buffy's sharp glance. 

"I didn't mean _us_," she hissed in exasperation, then turned back to attack. Spike had taken advantage of the distraction to strike at the two remaining vampires directly in front of him, taking both heads off with a single clean stroke. Untold more poured down from the walls. 

Everything descended into red-tinged chaos after that. 

Buffy's focus narrowed until her entire world contained only the smooth rise and fall of the stake in her hand - twist and bend and strike, then recover to strike again and again. The sound of her own quickening breaths and the stamp and shuffle of feet filled her ears. She was dimly aware that Spike had fallen under the onslaught, his sword skittering away across the floor. But before she could do more than start towards him, he'd thrown one off of him and at least ten feet across the room with a well-placed kick. He kicked out back to his feet, knocking down a second with a wild swing, and then he reached over the head of a third, jammed his fingers into its mouth and tore the head away from the body entirely. 

Some part of her brain found time to register this anomalous strength, but all she did was toss him her second stake, saying "Here. It's easier." 

Behind her, Dawn continued methodically reloading and firing until her supply of bolts finally ran out. She dove and rolled across the dusty floor in an effort to get to Spike's lost sword. Just as she reached it, a vampire caught her, tangling one hand in her hair and raking at her face with the other. She spun, adding the force of its pull to her own movement. The vampire didn't even have time to look surprised as its head parted company with its neck. 

Almost as suddenly as the battle had begun, it was over, and the three of them stared bemusedly at one another through the ash-hazed air. 

Dawn leaned on the crosspiece of the sword that was balanced point down between her feet. She looked for all the world like a valkyrie, Buffy decided, with her long hair wild about her shoulders and blood from a gash on her forehead streaming down her face to drip from her chin. 

"What?" Dawn asked sharply, seeing her sister's gaze resting on her. "I _told_ you I've been practicing." For all her bravado, her voice trembled. 

"Why am I still alive? I wasn't supposed to be alive." Buffy tore her eyes away from her sister in time to see Spike collapse to his knees, his hands fisting in his hair and streaking the dark and light strands with bright gore. "What have you done to me?" he raged, bowed over on the dusty floor. 

"I don't know," Buffy whispered. _I let you love me, and just see what it's done..._

She went to her own knees before him then, taking his wrists in a firm grip and pulling his hands away before they could crook into claws and tear at his face. He offered no resistance. Releasing him, she tore his blood-soaked shirt in two from neck to hem, and then ran her hands over him frantically searching for the source of the bleeding. 

"It's not mine," he said, with a disturbing sound somewhere between a manic giggle and a sob. "Not a scratch." 

She'd just seen him take the most appalling beating, but apparently he wasn't even bruised. His heart pounded heavily under the hand she'd laid on his chest. _Not a vampire... what are you? _

"Now what?" Dawn wanted to know. 

_If I only knew..._ Buffy got up reluctantly from Spike's side, hoping that his life wouldn't be in danger - not even from himself - in the next few minutes. "Now we have a quick look around to make sure we haven't missed anything, and we call the police and report that the blood's here. Then we get the hell out of here before they arrive." She wiped as much blood from her hands onto her jeans as she could. "Come on." 

Buffy and Dawn moved further into the warehouse. Instead of more shelves and the refrigeration units she had expected to see, they were surprised to find a large area left clear. The floor had been swept clean, and a giant ring of twisting symbols had been painted onto it. Buffy's stomach gave an unpleasant lurch at the sight of it, and the traces of blood on her hands grew warm. Her palms tingled as she approached. Voices whispered and muttered in her ears, and she thought that if she held her head in just the right way, she might make out what they were saying. She stepped forward - it was some sort of invitation... 

"Buffy, _stop! _" 

Willow's voice - better than a bucket of ice water over the head - snapped her back into reality, one foot poised to step into the circle. Wincing with the effort required, Buffy drew herself back from the brink. 

"It's a summoning circle," Willow explained as she drew nearer. "If you had--" she bit off her words and doubled over, clutching at herself. 

"Willow, what's wrong?" Dawn exclaimed, taking her arm in support. 

Willow exhaled noisily. "Ooh. Just a few bad thoughts. I'm okay." 

Buffy examined her friend more closely. The sleeve of her sweater was torn, and when the fabric fluttered open it revealed an angry-looking slice down her forearm. 

"Surprised a pesky pint-sized demon in the inner office when I went to use the phone," she explained, seeing Buffy's concern. "It took me a little while to get rid of it." She mimed pounding motions. 

"Interesting security system." 

"It turned out that it was really trying to keep me from getting near the _computer_ in there, not the phone. I've found some incredible stuff - I'll show you. Whoever was behind all of this was setting up to summon something - something really big, from the looks of that circle. I didn't have time to look for the details. The plan was to collect an enormous amount of human blood and then pour it all in at once as an offering to open the door between dimensions." 

Buffy looked around the warehouse, at row upon row of tidy packages of blood, refrigerated and waiting. "All that blood..." she whispered. 

"It would have been huge," Willow confirmed. "_End-of-the-world_ huge. Or at least most of the state." 

"So we actually prevented another apocalypse without even realizing it?" Dawn asked, and Willow nodded. "Cool." 

Buffy smiled at her little... her not-so-little sister's enthusiasm. "That would make what now, Will? Seven? Or is it eight?" 

"Depends what you count as really apocalypse-y, I suppose," Willow replied. "Glory... or me... sure. The mayor or Adam maybe not so much." 

"Watch that ego there, Will." Buffy grinned. "Whichever. If it _had_ happened, it would still have been one too many." Buffy took the sword from Dawn and swung it with all her strength at the edge of the circle. Shards of concrete flew at the impact, and she thought she heard a protesting scream deep inside her head. It faded as she continued to strike, until most of the circle's symbols were obliterated. "There. No one will be messing around with that again any time soon." 

Abandoning the ruined sword, the three of them linked arms and turned towards the front of the building and the office. In the distance, they finally heard a siren wailing. "Sunnydale paramedics have impeccable timing," Buffy observed. "Let's collect Spike and get the hell out of here. They can call the police themselves, when they see this place." 

When they rounded the corner again, all they saw was a set of sticky red footprints that faded away near the front door. Spike was gone. 

********** 

"He's strong," Buffy commented as she placed the last of the butterfly bandages across the cut on Dawn's forehead. "More than human strong, I mean." 

Giles looked up from where he was performing a similar service for Willow's injured arm. "But not a vampire." 

Buffy shook her head. _No. I don't know. _ "And he only left the hospital this afternoon. According to them, he should have had trouble _walking_, much less fighting off a dozen vampires on his own." 

"Fascinating." Giles straightened in his seat, his eyes bright with the promise of an intellectual challenge. "Let me think about it for a while." 

Thinking, for Giles, always seemed to involve riffling the pages of some ponderous dusty tome, whether or not his limited travelling library contained anything relevant to the subject. Buffy left him to it and turned to cleaning up the debris of first aid they'd left scattered about the small living room of the apartment he shared with Willow. 

"Shit!" Dawn exclaimed suddenly, startling them all. Three pairs of curious eyes turned her way, and she reddened. "Um... darn?" 

"What is it, Dawn?" Giles inquired. "Is there something you need to add regarding the events of the day?" 

"Oh no, no," she was quick to insist. "It's nothing, really." Under their insistent stares, she found herself forced to continue. "It's just that..." --she took a deep breath-- "I was supposed to meet Phil Letourneau tonight. What with all the fun we've been having, I completely forgot. " 

"Phil of the algebra notes? _Creepy_ Phil?" Buffy smiled in amusement. 

"Yeah, well... he's not really _that_ creepy, I guess," Dawn admitted. "He was going to pick me up for a movie." 

"You should still go," Willow insisted. "It's important to keep your life as normal as possible, between apocalypses. Good mental health and all." 

"So _that's_ the plural of apocalypse," Buffy said thoughtfully. "I've always wondered about that." 

"Do you think I should tell him I ran into a door?" Dawn asked, fingering her bandaged forehead gingerly. 

Buffy grinned. "Welcome to the world of creative slaying-related excuses. You'll think of something. I'm still not sure _I'm_ going to be able to come up with something that's going to do the trick for me. I may already be fired." Her grin slipped and she sighed heavily. "I'll worry about it tomorrow, I guess. Tonight I find Spike. Are you okay to get home alone?" 

"I'll walk her home, Buffy," Willow volunteered. "It's not that far, and Giles can come and pick me up after he's done with all the thinking." 

Dawn looked up, her face grave. "Buffy? When you find him... bring him home." 

Buffy nodded. "I will," she promised. 

********** 

"Do you have anything yet?" 

"Possibly. I have a theory that it might be a synergistic consequence of the combination of --" 

"In English, Giles? _Buffy_ English, not _English_ English." 

"Yes, right. Actually, it depends on your understanding of the origin of the Primal Slayer." 

Buffy frowned at this non sequitur. "To know what happened to Spike, I need to know about the first Slayer? What's to know? 'One girl, in all the world, she is the chosen one,' yada, yada, yada. She was just the first one of all of us." 

"There's rather more to it than that. To create the first Slayer, the men who would become the first Watchers summoned a demon. A girl was... bound... to the earth, and the demon's essence merged with hers, to give her power over other demons." 

"Like rape? That's... that's just _sick_." _Oh god, what if Spike was right all along? Does that mean I'm--_ "I'm not a demon!" 

"No, you're _more_ than human, not less. But that _is_ the source of your power, all the same. And at the moment of a Slayer's death, that essence is transferred to another girl capable of receiving it. To be a potential Slayer is to simply be strong enough to be _able_ to hold that kind of power. 

"Now consider what has happened to Spike. He was literally minutes away from death - killed by a vampire whose blood he had drunk." 

"So _he_ could be a vampire again, so that I would have to kill him." Her face was cold. "I know that part." 

"And he was held by medical science just at the very _moment_ of death, at which point his body _should_ have become host to a demon - and given the blood of a Slayer." 

Buffy's eyes widened in sudden comprehension. "So he received... some of my demon? He's a... a Slayer now?" 

Giles shook his head. "I don't know. Let's not forget that he also received an experimental blood substitute, of which we don't know the long-term effects, as well as blood from Dawn. And I don't believe that anything has fundamentally changed about Dawn simply because Glory was defeated. The mystical nature of the Key has never been fully understood." 

"So we don't know _what_ he is now, or what he can do." 

"No. It's definitely a topic that requires in-depth research." Giles sounded very kid-in-a-candy-store about the whole prospect. "Perhaps it's only that he was a vampire, his body hosting a demon for more than a century, that gave him the ability to survive such a thing. There's a reason there are no male Slayers, after all. They aren't strong enough, in the ways a Slayer must be." 

"When you figure it out, you let me know. I'm going to find him." _There's just one stop I need to make on the way. _


	27. I Love a Parade

_You've been with me for twenty-six chapters now, you've seen the miscommunications and misunderstandings between Buffy and Spike, and all the others as well. I hope you think they've grown and learned something about each other with everything I've put them through, and I hope it's seemed real to you along the way. _

So this, at last, is the beginning of the end. This time, they're going to try to make it right...   
------------------ 

**I Love A Parade**

She heard the loud music blaring before she was even in sight of the crypt and relief weakened her bones. _Well now I know he's still alive. And it could be worse - it could be country music now. That would mean a_ complete _breakdown. _

_I'm full of regret   
For all things that I've done and said   
And I don't know if it'll ever be ok to show   
My face 'round here   
Sometimes I wonder if I disappear. _

"Buffy, hey!" Clem exclaimed over the music, as he opened the door. "It's been a long time." 

"Hello Clem. I haven't forgotten that I still owe you that kitten, you know. I've just been a little busy lately." 

"I know you're no welcher, Slayer. Whenever you get a chance." He waved an understanding hand, but didn't move out of the doorway. "But I was just on my way to--" 

"Is Spike here? I want to talk to him." 

"Well, he... uh, had to go out for a while," Clem stammered. "I don't know when he'll be back." 

Buffy leaned forward and kissed his wrinkled cheek. "You're a terrible liar, Clem. Don't ever change." She pushed gently past him into the candlelit crypt. "Spike? I need to see you." 

_And I've done you so wrong   
Treated you bad   
Strung you along   
Oh shame on myself   
I don't know how I got so tangled up_

She found the CD player, hit stop, and the band died without even a whimper. 

"What if I don't want to be seen?" asked a harsh voice in the sudden silence. 

"Spike, I--" Now that she was here, it was more difficult than she had expected. She pulled a pendant on a thin silver chain from her pocket and passed it through her fingers from hand to hand, nervously. 

"Is that Anyanka's amulet you've got there, pet?" he asked resignedly as he emerged into the dim light. "Am I finally going to get what I deserve? Is that why you've come?" 

She stepped forward and held out the chain with one hand. "It is, yes. And you should get what you deserve," Buffy said, the amulet spinning and winking in the candlelight where it hung from her fingers. "I wish... I wish that we would always tell each other the truth." 

Spike stared at her, but felt no different. Nothing had changed; he felt no compulsion to speak. 

Buffy sighed and let the silver chain slip free between her fingers to pool with a metallic clink and hiss on the stones. "Anya's human again. And it's going to be permanent this time." She stepped forward towards him and the amulet's stone - now nothing more than cheap glass - ground to dust under her foot. "It doesn't change what I wish, though. We just have to make it happen ourselves, instead." 

He advanced to meet her, challenging her. "You really think you want to know all about me, Slayer? Do you really think you have any idea what I am, or what I've done?" 

She nodded. "I have to know the truth, Spike." 

Behind her, Clem spluttered something about his errand. They both ignored him as he bolted from the crypt. 

Buffy steeled herself to hear the worst atrocities from Spike's century of darkness. Whether he'd admit the truth of it or not, the Watcher's Council had documented his activities well for most of that time, and she'd seen the records. But she still needed to hear it from him. 

To her surprise, what came pouring out of him was not the story of his years as a vampire, but the tale of the last year. In his words it became a story of deception, betrayal, cowardice and lust, culminating in a naked account of Allie's last days and his retribution against Tonio. 

She paled before the caustic torrent of words, but didn't look away, and didn't flinch. 

"What kind of man am I, to do things like that?" 

Buffy was quiet for a long time before she replied. "One who's in pain and pushed beyond his breaking point," she said softly. "Striking out at anything and everything that's hurt him. A man who cares so much about helping someone else who's suffering that he nearly destroys himself. A man who's afraid that all that he cares about is being taken away from him." 

"Now I can use _fear_ as my excuse? Buffy, I was afraid my whole life. Of the opinions of my peers, that no woman would love me, that I'd fail my mother... I _welcomed_ my death, do you understand? Only to find that, irony of ironies, I had all _new_ fears. That I'd never belong, that Dru would leave me... and finally that you'd never love me." 

"So you went and got a soul - and more." 

"I thought at last I'd found a way out of that hole. Found a way to be a man, at last; to do something useful with the extraordinary gift I'd been given. To be able to help people. Instead, all I found was that I destroy everything and everyone that I touch, and it's all gone to ashes in my mouth. Nothing but blood and ashes..." His voice was bitter and hard, and brooked no thought of possible forgiveness. "Fat lot of good the soul is. I've betrayed, I've hurt and killed--" 

"A soul isn't a chip, Spike," she said, frustrated that he wasn't hearing what she meant. "It can't _make_ you do anything; it can't _stop_ you from doing anything. If you want to kill and hurt, then you will, because you're not listening to it. You haven't had any practice at that for a century, so I guess it's not surprising that you're finding it difficult. But don't give up." 

"Be easier for both of us if I did." 

"You think this is _easy_ for me, watching you try to destroy yourself?" 

"Then walk away. You don't have to watch." 

"No. I won't do that. I can't. Not after everything you've done. You went and got a soul," she repeated. "For me." 

"I didn't do it for you; I did it for me. When you told me you could never love me because I didn't have a soul, that's when I decided to search for one. After all, if that was the only thing standing in the way, when I came back with it, you ought to fall into my arms. And having one, I found that everything had changed." 

"_You_ didn't. You told me you loved me, long before you had it." 

"You were in pain and you were confused - and I wasted no time trying to take advantage of that. Tried to convince you that being with me could make you _feel_ something again. Tried to tear you apart from your friends so that I'd be the only one you'd have left to turn to. Encouraged you to do things you would never have done on your own--" 

"Stop making excuses for me!" she shouted angrily, cutting him off mid-sentence. "Damn you, will you just _listen_ to me for a minute?" 

"Listen?" he snapped. "I've done nothing _but_ listen to you for years. Listen to you tell me I'd never be the one, that I was beneath you. Even with the soul, I didn't understand what you were feeling, at first. But I've learned my lesson well, this year. The demon's an excuse; the real monster's here inside me." His fingers stabbed at his chest like knives. "Do you understand me now? I _believe_ you! I finally see in myself just what you've been seeing." He drew a deep, shuddering breath. "I tried to cut this feeling out of myself, to spare you this grotesque..." Words failed him. "Let me make _something_ out of what I am. Let me die for you!" 

Her answer, when it came, was whisper soft, quiet as a mortal blow driven home with a fine blade. "No." 

He hung his head, shoulders slumping at this ultimate rejection. _Not even good enough dead. _

"No," she went on. "It isn't that easy. I want more. I'm going to take everything you have, use you to help me save the world again and again, drain you dry until you think that the most horrible death would be a mercy. Then I'll ask you to go on." Her voice shook. "Maybe I'll never be able to give you back enough. But maybe I can give you everything. Don't waste what you are, dying for me. Live for me." 

Spike looked up again, not daring to breathe. The Slayer's rage was gone from her voice; only the woman's anguish remained. "I- I don't--" he stammered. 

"This isn't a contest to see who's been more cruel," she insisted more gently, intent on making her point while she had the chance. "We both know by now exactly what hurts the other the most." 

"No...." He had to summon all his courage just to remain standing before her. _If I let myself believe you can still care about me after all I've done, then I have to believe the other things you've said to me... _

Buffy looked deflated, as though his unexpected surrender had stolen all the fire from her argument - but she pressed on. "I just want you to go into this with your eyes open - to know what you're getting. And if I stop now to debate who's the worse person, I'll never be able to say it." She looked down at her feet. "I'm not good with words, like you. I made Willow help me with what I needed to say to you, and she listened while I practiced it - so don't interrupt me or I'll have to start over." Taking a deep breath, she looked up and locked her eyes to his. 

"Last year, I used you like you were my own personal sex toy. My excuse was that I wanted to feel, and any feeling - even revulsion at the choices I was making - was better than the horrible numbness, doubting that I was even alive. 

"Then when I called it off, it wasn't because I realized what I'd been doing to you, that it was wrong, but because I couldn't bear having to hide it from my friends, the mortification of having them know what I - we - were doing." She blinked back tears for a moment. 

"I'm so sorry. You're a person, not a thing - you showed that enough times over the past few years - and you didn't deserve to be treated like that. But I did it, and I'm sorry, and nothing I ever do from this point on can change what I've done..." 

"Buffy," he protested incredulously. "I tried to _rape_ you." 

"Yes, you did," she said evenly, not looking away from him. "I've never felt more terrified or degraded in my life. Did you think I deserved it for what I'd done to you?" 

Spike couldn't hide his horror at the suggestion. "God, Buffy, no! I--" 

"Good. Because I'm not sitting around thinking that just because something horrible happened to me that I suddenly don't have to be accountable for how I acted. This isn't some contest about whoever has suffered the most getting a 'get out of guilt, free' card." 

"Not an innocent party here, Buffy," he protested. "I was a _vampire_." 

"You didn't have a soul then. You didn't know that what you were doing was wrong," she insisted. "_I_ should have known better." 

"Who's making excuses for whom now? I knew perfectly well what I was choosing to do - but it just doesn't matter when the demon's riding you. Buffy, I'm a serial killer, thousands of times - _ten_ thousand times over. I _enjoyed_ it." 

"It wasn't you." 

"_Fuck_ that for a game of soldiers! It _was_ me! If it wasn't, why is it I can hear every one of them now screaming for my blood? See every one of them dying again in my dreams? Otherwise we'll just make this into another sad round of 'after vampires get souls, they can't be held responsible for their former actions on days with a y in them'. The things I tried to do to _you_, alone--" 

She cut him off again. "Are not at issue here. I swear, if you say 'but Buffy, I hurt you more,' I _will_ deck you." 

Spike paused, just to take in the glory of her, her face flushed with the heat of the argument. "Wouldn't dream of it," he said, finding the courage to smile a little, at last. 

"All those things we did to each other - I don't want to count them or weigh them out to find out who's worse. I want to forget them. _All_ of them. We start over." She sighed. "I know you've done terrible things to other people. It's not my place to forgive you for that, but I hope you'll let me help you find a way to deal with it." 

He felt light-headed, as though his veins ran full of strong wine. "So, back when you said you want me to 'know what I'm getting'..." He didn't dare finish the sentence or follow that thought to its logical conclusion. 

"I thought I'd come watch the parade," she said simply. 

His eyes narrowed and his head tilted to one side in confusion. "Come again, love?" 

Buffy walked forward, her eyes intent only on him. "You told me once that when I finally knew what I wanted, there would probably be a parade. You remember, 'seventy six bloody trombones...'" 

"Why is it that you Americans always have such trouble with an English accent?" He tried weakly to tease her, but he trembled, caught in the confluence of terrible hope and terrible fear. She stopped before him, laying one hand gently on his chest. 

"I know what I want. And a very good friend has only recently reminded me that when you know what you want, you grab it with both hands--" A second hand joined the first and curled into the fabric of his open shirt. "--and don't let go. Listen to your heart and don't let anyone take it away from you. 

"You know what I think. You understand me. You see so deeply into me. My friends love me, but they don't really see more than they want to. You are the only person who sees me for _exactly_ what I am, and loves me anyway. Even Giles couldn't do that for me, in the end. 

"It scared me, that I liked... the things we did together." Her cheeks flushed, and she had to look away for a moment. "But I know now, that's part of what I am. You knew it before I did. You always knew what I needed." 

He shook his head, denying it all, lost in terrible memories of the time he had clearly _not_ known, but she stilled his head with one hand on his cheek. "No. You know what I am, and what I have to do, and it doesn't bother you. There's no hiding from you. It's like some kind of psychological X-ray vision. And if I let myself, I know I would be able to do the same, about you. I can't think of anyone I'd trust more to try to make me happy, in spite of knowing everything that you know about what I've done. And I want to be the one to do the same for you - for however long I've got." 

"I don't deserve to be happy," he insisted. 

Buffy sighed. "As far as I can tell, no one does. Doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying, though." 

"I don't deserve to have you," he said more forcefully. 

"Then we're even; I don't deserve you either. Maybe neither one of us is such a prize. But sometimes we get a second chance." 

"A gift of grace," he murmured, understanding dawning in his eyes. "'Do not weigh our merits, but pardon our offences. We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us; the burden of them is intolerable.'" 

"What's that?" she whispered. 

"Nothing, love. A childhood prayer." 

She leaned into him, and he let his arms slip around her in a most fragile embrace. "You know so many things. You've _done_ so many things." 

"Mostly things I'd rather you didn't know about," he commented sorrowfully. 

"You've seen the whole world, and I... I'll never see any of it, except maybe on the travel channel. But you can make me see it, with your words." 

_If I could, I'd find a way to show you the world, Buffy. I swear I would. _

"And you listen." She smiled. "Most of the time, anyway." 

_Listen. _ A woman's gentle voice caressed his memory, and he shivered. 

"You knew. Years ago, when Oz left... you knew that Willow was hurting, when none of us could see it. You told _me_ I could only heal my pain by living. I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for you. I don't know if it will last, but Xander and Anya are going to try again, because of you - because of what you told him. Funny, isn't it, that none of us ever realized how much we needed you to be there for us?" 

She looked up at him, her face only inches from his, and her warm breath grazed his cheek with a caress like a sweet summer breeze. "I need you. When you left, you told me you were trying to find a way to become an honourable man. You _are_ that man. And in some ways, you've always been. Just because we weren't capable of seeing it doesn't mean it wasn't true." 

His own breath seemed caught up somewhere in the knot being tied tightly in the centre of his chest, and he wondered for a wild instant if asthma would now become part of his human condition. "Buffy..." he finally managed to gasp. 

"Shh... I'm not done. If I don't say this now I don't know when I'll ever have the nerve. I want you." She finally stopped tormenting him with her closeness and leaned in to kiss his cheek, tasting the salt from past tears not yet washed away. 

"Buffy, please," he whispered, breaking away. "Don't sing me the same song again. You've wanted me before, and there was nothing but--" _Please don't. You can break me with a word. _

"William... I love you." 

_But if you break me, then you can remake me..._

"I love you," she said again. "And not as my second choice. Not out of pity, or as a reward for all the good things you've done, but in spite of all the horrible things. I love you because it's selfish, because I'm so tired of always being alone, even when I'm with other people, and I want you beside me, always." 

And she was kissing him again but now he was kissing her back, their mouths warm and wet and their tongues slipping eagerly together and he was drowning in the taste of her, the scent of her surrounding him. All the other senses they had were subsumed to taste and smell and touch. His arms were around her and he was lifting her to set her gently on his bed but never letting his lips lose contact with hers. 

His hands lifted her shirt and crept over the sweet expanse of her skin, one slipping up to cup her breast through the soft cotton of her bra. 

"No," she said suddenly against his lips, and he flinched away as though burned. A pained look of understanding crossed her face. 

"I'm sorry. I only meant that I don't want to make love to you for the first time in this place surrounded by dead things." She took his hand, and gently, deliberately, placed it on her breast again, covering it with her own as she leaned in to kiss him once more. 

"Come home with me. Lie down beside me tonight so I know you'll be in my arms when I wake up tomorrow." 

His eyes widened, and his heart nearly stopped in his chest. 

"You see?" she said, with a gentle smile. "I've even been known to listen myself, from time to time." 

********** 

They made their way back to the house slowly, talking in inconsequentialities. Spike kept his hands in his pockets as they walked, not yet daring to test their rediscovered intimacy. 

As they came around the last corner onto Revello Drive, Spike halted so abruptly that Buffy was several paces ahead of him before she could stop as well. She looked back at him questioningly. 

"How will Dawn feel about all of this?" 

Buffy linked her arm through his encouragingly. "Dawn and Willow and I have had a chance to spend some time together." Seeing his alarmed look, she quickly added: "Don't worry, we edited things appropriately. Mostly she's just relieved that you're not dead or vanished somewhere." She pulled his hand from his pocket, took it in hers and squeezed it tightly. "And she didn't mean what she said to you at the hospital. She was just afraid of losing you. Like I was." 

Spike relented, and let Buffy lead him down the street again. He balked a second time, though, when they reached the front steps. With his hands again thrust deep into his pockets and his shoulders hunched, he was the very picture of uncertainty. 

"It's going to be all right," Buffy said softly. "Come on." She opened the door and called inside. "Dawn? We're home." With a smile, she beckoned him up the steps. 

Spike entered hesitantly. Dawn clattered down the stairs, all coltish limbs and flying hair, and skidded to a stop in the foyer. "Spike," she breathed when she saw him standing there. Her face broke into a wide smile. "Welcome _home_." Before he could react, she had enfolded him in a firm embrace. His arms tightened around her involuntarily in return. "I'm sorry I said what I did," she whispered in his ear. 

"Doesn't matter," he returned 

When he could free himself, he stepped back, the better to take in her smiling face and laughing emerald eyes... on a level with his own? "When did you get so tall?" he wondered out loud. 

"Last week," Buffy informed him. "We went shopping." 

"Heels!" Dawn squeaked happily, turning out one ankle so he could admire her new shoes. She laughed, bobbing her head and shrugging with delighted awkwardness under his attention in a way that took him back to the day they had met. 

"Dawn's got a date tonight," Buffy said with an indulgent smile. 

"A date?" Spike repeated incredulously. "We had best take up some sparring again, Bit, in case your lads need to be reminded to mind their manners." He stroked her flushed cheek and tucked a long dark strand of hair back behind her ear. The bandaged cut on her forehead somehow served only to emphasize her allure. "Because when they see what a beauty they've got..." Dawn blushed even redder, and looked down. 

"What, prettier than me?" Buffy protested, smiling. But the intensity of the look he turned on her from under lowered lashes made her breath catch in her throat. 

"Do you have everything you need?" Buffy asked Dawn, in an effort to keep from pulling Spike into her arms on the spot. "Money for the movie and snacks, and enough to get home if you need it? House keys? Cell phone?" 

Dawn sighed in fond exasperation. "Yes, mom." 

"And?" 

"And, just in case." Dawn held her bag open in front of them, and rummaged inside to produce a smoothly worn and twisted piece of wood. "You're sure you're okay with me borrowing Mr. Pointy for the night?" 

"Only the best for my little sister. Home by midnight, now. No excuses," Buffy admonished. 

"Huh. Like the two of you would even notice." Dawn smiled. 

Buffy suddenly knew that she _could not_ walk up those stairs with Spike while her sister was watching, or was even anywhere in the house where she might be imagining what was going on up there. Giving herself a firm but futile inner rebuke for this attack of prudish shyness, she turned to him. "How about a glass of wine while we wait for Dawn's date to show up? I still have that bottle you brought us..." _before Christmas - I am an idiot. What if it's spoiled in the fridge after all this time? _

Spike's glance flicked from Buffy to Dawn and back again. An understanding smile brought creases to the corners of his eyes. "I'd like that, yes." 

They retreated to the kitchen together, followed by Dawn's satisfied and knowing grin. Buffy snared two wineglasses from the cabinet on the way. While she wrestled the cork out of the bottle and filled them, Spike's attention was caught by a deep and narrow triangular gash in the countertop. _That's a knife mark_. His fingers traced it, and he all at once knew with terrible clarity what must have happened there. 

Buffy saw the direction of his gaze and shook her head, simultaneously warning him away from mentioning it and letting him know it was to be forgotten with the rest of their difficult past. He turned away gratefully to accept the glass she handed him. 

"Um... I guess we should have a toast," Buffy proposed uncertainly. "How about 'to us'?" 

"Strength and courage," Spike replied. Before she could ask him what he meant, they heard Dawn calling goodbye to them. They returned their own goodbyes, and then heard the satisfying slam of the front door behind her. Buffy turned back to him, the question in her eyes. 

"A wise philosopher once said 'being loved deeply by someone gives you strength; while loving someone deeply gives you courage'," he said. "You've given me more courage than I'd ever dreamed was possible; I hope you'll always accept strength from me." 

It took her a moment to puzzle out his meaning, and then she smiled and they both lifted their glasses to drink. 

"You give me courage too," she whispered, setting her glass back down. "Come with me and let me show you." 

Their nearly full wineglasses abandoned on the counter, he followed her upstairs. 

--------------------   
_Well, I never claimed I wasn't evil. *eg* Final chapter should be ready within the week. Did you know that I'd actually had 95% of this chapter written a year ago? _


	28. Mr and Mrs Summers

**Mr. and Mrs. Summers**

The bedroom door had barely shut behind them when Buffy had him up against the wall, her hands reaching eagerly up under his shirt. Her mouth was hot and urgent on his, as though she wanted to steal back more than a year's worth of kisses missed, all on one breath. She broke away from his lips only for as long as it took to yank his tee shirt up and over his head, discarding it on the floor beside them. 

"Love you," he managed to breathe between frantically returned kisses, letting his fingers slip through the silken strands of her hair as it came loose under his hands. Her own hands, it seemed, were everywhere on him at once, leaving him dizzy with the sensation of trying to follow their progress over his skin. Spike trembled when she ran her nails lightly down over his chest and stomach. Nimble fingers made quick work of both his belt and the fly of his jeans. 

Buffy's lips puffed against his in a surprised laugh. An inquisitive noise was all he could manage to organize, pinned between two indescribable pleasures. _I don't know if it's a good idea if the woman laughs at this point... _

"You're so... warm," she explained, smiling against his mouth. "I didn't really think--" 

He froze. "Buffy, I can't do this." It took everything he had, but he lifted his hands to gently cup her face, and pushed her away until he could see her confused expression clearly. "I can't." 

"It's all right," Buffy said, with sudden comprehension. "I'm saying yes." 

"No." One thumb gently caressed her cheek. 

"Yes. I told you, I forgive you. And... I want this." She took his wrists gently and brought his hands to her waist. "If it's better, just lie down, and let me--" 

"It's not that. Well, it is, partly, but..." He tipped his head back as though the ceiling would offer him sudden inspiration. "Buffy, am I really human now?" 

Her fingertips traced his lips and then slipped softly over the high arch of his cheekbone. _Is_ that _what you're worried about? _ "At least as much as I am, William - but I don't know if that's really an answer. Why? I mean - it was never a problem before." 

"Because if I am... Hell, this is going to sound stupid... I don't... I didn't bring any condoms." 

_Oh. That_ is _different than before. _ She looked at him thoughtfully. _Not that there aren't many other ways, and we've certainly tried them all at least a couple - or a couple_ dozen - _times. But I want you_ now, _here with me. _ Buffy closed her eyes, contemplating her next words and their implications fully before she spoke again. "We've both seen so much death... we've both been dead long enough. Tonight... I'd risk life with you." 

Spike stopped resisting her then, and she led him to lie on her frilly, girlish bed, where she adjusted the pillows tenderly behind him. He tilted his hips to help her ease his jeans off of him. He'd never made a secret of what pleased him, though she'd rarely been bothered to see to his pleasure before. _Past time to make up for things_, she thought, watching with satisfaction the expressions of helplessness and amazement that chased across his open-mouthed face. All too soon - and just in time - she let him slip from lips that curved in a contented smile. 

Buffy stood at the side of the bed where she could be sure he could see all of her. Her blouse came off in one fluid sweep of her hands, and the demure cotton bra followed in a brief moment. She pulled the last of her hair free from the clip to cascade over one shoulder. He'd always loved her hair. 

Her jeans and panties joined the rest of their clothes scattered on the floor, and she slowly began to nibble and kiss her way up his stomach as she climbed up on top of him. Buffy straddled his hips and lowered herself onto him with a sigh. She began a gentle movement, and after a time he began to match her rhythm, thrusting upwards to meet her body descending, tentatively at first and then with growing confidence. 

He had a bad moment when she closed her eyes and he feared she was leaving him, drawing away into herself as she always had - but then she leaned forward, pressing against him, and whispered, "Put your arms around me." 

He did so, his fingers outlining the individual delicate bones of her spine, his palms feeling the play of muscles in her back as she moved slowly above him. Her body rose and fell more rapidly, after a time, and her breathing quickened, and he was content just to know that she could still please herself on him. He trailed his fingers up the soft skin of her thighs to where their bodies joined. His touch sent her into a shuddering climax that left her lying spent on his chest, sweaty and dishevelled, but to him still heartbreakingly beautiful. 

Buffy lifted her head and looked down at Spike. His eyes were closed and his lips pressed into a tight line. She could feel him yet, still achingly hard in her. "Let go, Spike. Come for me," she whispered in his ear. "Come inside me, lover." 

Her words undid him at last, and she captured his groan in her mouth as he came, helpless under her. 

********** 

"I love you, Buffy Anne Summers." 

"I love you ... William Summers," she said with a laugh. "We really should look into getting that fixed for you. I don't know what Anya and Dawn were thinking." 

"No," he said thoughtfully. "I have a new life. It's fitting, then, that I have a new name. Let it be. I'll try to be worthy of it." 

"Oh William," she sighed, drawing him down to her again. _You already are_. "You're not just saying that to foil my plans for a big wedding, are you? I wanted Dawn and Willow and even Anya for bridesmaids, and Xander and Angel could stand up for you. Giles would give me away..." 

"Don't tease, love. I'd be tempted to do it just to see the look on his face." 

No need to specify who _he_ was, given the context. 

"Who said I was teasing?" she asked guilelessly, grey-green eyes like ocean depths, drowning him. 

He was seized with a sudden vision of Buffy on Giles's arm, coming down an aisle towards him swathed in silk and lace, pearls about her throat and trembling at her ears. The room spun around him, and he shivered in her arms. "Anything for you." 

********** 

They spent what seemed like forever lying still, nose to nose, forehead pressed to forehead. 

"I love you," he said again. What else was left to say? 

"Yes," she replied softly, and he drew back and stared at her, puzzled, until he finally realized that she was only answering the question he had told her lay beyond the words. _Please, may I be yours?_ His eyelids prickled suddenly with unshed tears, and he blinked rapidly to hold them back. _Oh grow a pair, you git. She doesn't need to think you're any more of a milksop. Bad enough you have to know it. _

"Love you," she said in turn. 

William just managed to keep the tremor from his voice when he replied. "Forever. _Always_. You were my obsession... now you're my salvation--" 

She put her hand over his mouth before he could get into full poetic flight. "Can't I just be the woman who loves you? Because if you insist on... those other things... you won't see _me_ anymore." 

"I'm yours. My whole life for you," he declared fervently. 

"That's not much of a promise," she teased. "We could both be dead by the next regularly scheduled apocalypse." 

"Life is uncertain; that's its seduction," he countered. 

Buffy only laughed deep in her throat and reached for him again, hungrily, as though she'd not had him only minutes before. "Speaking of the seduction..." 

He caught up her wrist before she could touch him. "Buffy, promise me. Promise you'll tell me... when it's right." 

"Now would be a good time," she said, pushing playfully against his hold. 

"I'm serious," he insisted, as he tightened his fingers. "I've got hardly any control. Maybe I do have a soul, but half the time I can't hear it, can't tell right from wrong." 

"Then you'll just have to learn." 

"I need you to tell me." 

"No." She freed herself from his grip. "Take responsibility for yourself. I had to." 

"And if I'm wrong?" 

"Then you deal with the consequences, the same as the rest of us. That's what having a soul is all about." 

"Buffy..." 

_Yes, that is edging perilously close to being a whine_. Years of living with a younger sister had taught her ears every nuance. She lunged upwards and caught his lower lip, none too gently, between her teeth. A spot of blood welled there when he pulled away. "The hell...?" 

"What's with the self-pity party?" 

"Self-pity?" he sputtered angrily. "Is that it, then? I can betray and hurt - even kill - people I care about, and it's 'get over it and come fuck me, Spike'? I suppose since it worked so well for you..." Bitterness choked his voice. 

Buffy felt as though she could clearly read the path to every secret pain of his heart. "Allie's dead, Spike," she said softly. "You did everything for her that anyone possibly could, and she's still dead. It's _not. Your. Fault_. And Angel isn't ever coming back, and I've touched heaven and will long for it _every day_ for the rest of my life. That doesn't mean we stop living. We fix the things we can, and we're still allowed to enjoy being alive, together." 

He closed his eyes. "I don't ever want to hurt you." 

"You won't." 

"I'm still dangerous," he insisted. 

"I know. So am I. I don't think anyone else could hurt you the way I can, now." Gentle fingertips traced the scar on his brow. "Spike..." 

"Don't call me that any more. Spike was a monster." 

"You told me that when the soul is taken, everything else is already there and is just set free. So what made you Spike was always there, waiting, inside William. You don't get to decide to throw it out now, just because it makes you uncomfortable. And what makes William _now_ better than William _then_ is everything that was Spike." 

He didn't know how to reply to that. Hell, he wasn't even sure he could _follow_ that, so he just waited for her to continue. 

"I'm not made of glass. Not really breakable. _You_ know... I _need_ a little monster in my man. You're safe with me. And I trust you... _Spike_." 

He seized her shoulders, fingers digging deeply into her flesh, and rolled her to her back, pressing her into the mattress. His kiss was demanding and harsh - and she responded enthusiastically in kind. They drew apart only when they both had to gasp for more breath. 

"There," Buffy said, satisfied. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" 

He tucked the tip of his tongue up behind his teeth and looked down at her with half-lidded, shameless eyes. A welcome shudder made its way down Buffy's spine as he looked lustfully at her. "I'll show you what's hard," he breathed, and captured her mouth again. 

He brought his lips to her ear, then, and whispered the same tender obscenities that had always loosened her limbs so effectively for him in the past. If the voice now was somewhat broken and the words bittersweet, she could choose not to hear it until he'd had as much time to heal his wounds as she'd been granted. 

"Think you can still make me scream?" she sighed softly against his cheek. 

His teeth closed sharply on her earlobe and she gave herself up to him. 

********** 

They came back to one another in a puzzle-ring tangle of limbs, milk-white and honey-gold. 

"Fuck..." William panted, his heart slowing gradually to a less frantic pace. 

"Oh," Buffy breathed, as they carefully extricated themselves. "That was... oh." 

He smiled with something of Spike's old slyness. "I think we're gonna need a bigger bed," he deadpanned in a flat American accent so perfect that she had only long enough to wonder _Just how many times has he seen that movie, anyway?_ before she surrendered to a fit of giggling that threatened to topple them both off the bed. 

_I'll make you laugh at least once every day_, he promised himself, and let gravity take both him and her - and half the bedclothes - to the floor. Laughing now himself, he twisted under her as they fell to take her weight as they thudded onto the hardwood. 

Some time later, after they had remade the bed and climbed back in, they found a position together that seemed marginally more stable. They sat up braced with pillows behind them, Buffy leaning contentedly against him with his arm around her waist. "In the letter you wrote me before you left, you quoted a line from poem about love," she said. "Do you remember the rest of it?" 

"Do I _remember_ it?" he asked, with mock outrage that she should insult him so. "You're asking this of the man whose greatest ambition was to be declared Britain's Poet Laureate? _Of course_ I remember it. '_How do I love thee? Let me count the ways_'. Probably Elizabeth Barrett Browning's best-known sonnet. A schoolchild could recite it." 

"Browning?" Buffy threw back the covers and went to her small bookshelf. "I have a book of her poems, I think. Angel gave it to me." She looked back with a guilty start, as if mentioning her first love's name yet again in their bedroom would be an unforgivable cruelty. 

William only smiled. The sweet curves of her body were maddening in the room's half-light, and he'd forgive her anything so long as she'd never leave him. "And I'll wager he never actually _read_ one to you. Give it here." Buffy tossed the book to him, and he leaned back again against the pillows, the bedclothes puddled in his lap, leafing through the pages. "_Sonnets from the Portuguese_, I should have known. Some of the greatest words ever written on love, and he expected you to read them to yourself. Uncultured oaf," he snorted, but without heat. 

"Here. _'Say over again, and yet once over again / That thou dost love me'_. " He turned a page, and squinted down his nose as though recalling absent glasses. "_' And when I say at need_ / I love thee ... _ mark! _ ... I love thee--_in thy sight / I stand transfigured, glorified aright'_. " Another page. "_'I should not love withal, unless that thou / Hadst set me an example, shown me how'_." He set the book down in his lap and looked up into Buffy's face to see her eyes shining. "You see? The passion in it - you can only _hear_ it, never read it. The real power of it is in the telling, pouring the words out into your listeners' ears, meaning what you say and making them live every joy and heartbreak with you." 

He picked up the book again and opened it at a random page. His expressive face grew suddenly still. "_'O Belovèd, it is plain / I am not of thy worth nor for thy place! / And yet, because I love thee, I obtain / From that same love this vindicating grace'_," he whispered. 

She slipped easily back into the bed beside him, leaning into his embrace. "I don't like that one. We've had that conversation already, and you lost. I intend to see that you lose every time." She rested her head on his shoulder, and he closed the book in favour of caressing the golden curls that tumbled there. 

"Anyway, I think you owe me a poem," she insisted. "Since you only ever wrote part of it in your letter. Read it out loud to me now." 

"I don't need to read it from a book," he said. "It's burned in my heart, every word, for you." 

_How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.   
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height   
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight   
For the ends of being and ideal grace.   
I love thee to the level of every day's   
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.   
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.   
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.   
I love thee with the passion put to use   
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.   
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose   
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,   
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,   
I shall but love thee better after death. _

********** 

They'd heard Dawn come home hours before and had giggled themselves nearly giddy trying to keep quiet. Now her early-morning namesake was already beginning to pluck at the curtains with pink fingers. 

William placed one hand reverently in the hollow between her breasts, feeling the quicksilver beating of her heart. "So much love here," he murmured. "And enough forgiveness, even for one such as me." Moving his hand, he bent to kiss her there, breathing deeply of her sweet musk and tasting the salty droplets on her flesh. He laid his cheek against her soft skin, and she pressed his head against her, the better for him to hear her heart beating there, loving him. 

Her fingers raked trails in his sweat-damp hair. "Let me tell you a story about yourself. Yourself, and me... and the first Slayer." 

********** 

She watched as his face softened in sleep, smoothing away some of the pain lines that bracketed his eyes and mouth, and she thought about the nature of love. This new love she'd found was fierce yet tender, it was possessive but it was also protective. And as such, it was at _least_ as complex and contradictory as the man lying now in her arms. A measure of peace descended on her as she realized that she didn't have to deny her past to make room for her future. Her love for Angel would always be there, sweet and melancholy, part of the girl she had been and the woman she might still live to become. 

_No pleasure without risking pain, right? 'Cause if it were easy, _ everyone _could do it. _ She tucked her head under his chin, her face pressed into the curve of his throat, and let sleep steal over her as well. 

There was no such thing as happily ever after, of course. They had too much history for that. There would be some days that she would throw the things he had done back in his face. He would then, in turn, cruelly point out her hypocrisies and failures. Even on their most peaceful days, there would always be a part of Buffy that William despaired of reaching, and a part of him that she knew she'd never be able to own. But there was love. 

It would be enough. 

********** 

_ "In a statement issued today by the law firm of Wolfram and Hart on behalf of biotech prodigy Incruentus, the company has denied all knowledge of and involvement in the thefts from blood banks that have plagued southern California. The company denies any wrongdoing, and claim that reports linking both the missing blood and the blood substitute to occult groups have been fabricated by biotech rivals desperate to increase their own market share. Trading in Incruentus stock was frozen on Wall Street today, as shares took another record plunge in value..._

------------------- 

March 2002 - September 2003 

_Well, that's it. This story has consumed a year and a half of my life, and endless hours of angst wondering if I would ever be able to pull the next chapter out of that inexplicable little wormhole in my brain that leads to the story idea place. My life (and, I'm told, my writing style) has changed remarkably over that time, and yet I still feel the same. Change creeps up on us, until one day you are completely different - and you never felt a thing while it was happening. _

I don't know what I'm going to write next, though I do know that I am going to write. Don't know when, either, but I find that things like that have a tendency to take care of themselves. There's an NC-17 WIP sequel to "Fragments of a Dream" that's posted at my site, "magista's obsession", which you can find by following the link on my main page here. It's only got two chapters so far, and I don't promise regular updates, either. I find my brain actually contemplating a human AU Spuffy pairing... might as well jump another bandwagon while I'm here. Time will tell. 

One last note: I figure if I borrow stuff without asking to make my story better, I should at least tell you about all the bits that aren't mine - like you hadn't figured it out anyway. So on that note... 

**From the 'credit where credit is due' department**

Joss Whedon, 'cause he made up all these cool characters and hasn't sued any of us for taking them out to play with. "We love you, Joss!" 

My marvy beta reader **HurrySundown**, who always makes me sound better than I am.   
My wonderful husband **Frohickey**, who kept the saying of 'when are you going to write something with original characters of your own?' to a minimum. 

Chapter-by-Chapter Credits   
_The Letter_   
Inspired by **A Civil Campaign**-Lois McMaster Bujold   
Lines from "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."-Elizabeth Barrett Browning   
_Tea and Sympathy_   
"Misery" -Pink   
_Dancing in the Dark_   
"Standing Outside the Fire"-Garth Brooks   
"Desperado"-The Eagles   
_The Vampire, the Witch and the Watcher_   
The Wiccan Rede-anon, but you can check the web for various interpretations   
Spike quotes from Psalm 8   
Willow counters with "Hamlet", act II, scene 2 - Shakespeare, who else?   
_A Week in the Death of William the Bloody_   
"Forever and for Always"-Shania Twain (sorry, Shania - he was in a mood)   
_Picking up the Pieces_   
Spiderman, Peter Parker and Dark Phoenix are of course (c)Marvel Entertainment   
_I Love a Parade_   
"Tangled Up"-Maroon5   
The 'wise philosopher' that Spike is quoting is Lao Tzu   
_Mr. and Mrs. Summers_   
Selections from **Sonnets from the Portuguese**-Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

And last, but certainly not least, all of you who read, reviewed, and generally made me feel as though I'd created something worthwhile. Thanks again, and see you next time. 

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Wow, you read this far? In that case, I'll offer you a little lagniappe: an epilogue to this tale. "The Letter (postscript)" was written more than a year ago with plans to present it at a PBfP in Chicago, but the timing never worked out. It's never been seen or heard since. The official ending of the story is up there, where you just came from, as far as I'm concerned. 

But the _unofficial_ ending... 

Since I wrote it so long ago, it actually reflects a much lighter tone to the story than it ended up developing. I don't consider it canon to this story any more, which had originally ended up with Spike coming over to make Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, and all would be well... Cute Spuffy, but hardly realistic. Just think of it as the after-dinner mint. Nice, but not substantial. 

Follow the link on my main page here to my own site, then navigate to Chapter 28 and go all the way to the bottom. 


End file.
